Liam Hepper: Spartan Stories – transforming complexity into automated solutions

Meet Spartan Liam Hepper, who is transforming complex governance, risk and compliance processes into scalable digital solutions as a ServiceNow Developer at a leading UK financial services organisation. After launching his technology career through Sparta Global, Liam now develops automated workflows, dashboards and platform capabilities that help stakeholders work more efficiently while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.

7 mins read

Careers, Financial services, ServiceNow, Spartan

Building a career through continuous learning

Before beginning his career in software development, Liam spent several years working outside the technology industry.

Working in office administration roles, he increasingly found himself looking for more challenging and rewarding work. During the COVID pandemic, he made the decision to pursue a complete career change, exploring several different paths before discovering programming.

Determined to make the transition, Liam committed to self-study and completed a postgraduate conversion course in Software Development at the University of Glasgow before joining Sparta Global’s Java Developer cohort.

Through Sparta’s training, Liam developed the technical foundations, problem-solving skills and adaptability needed to launch a successful career in technology.

“I came into tech relatively late – I didn’t start learning to code until I was 29.”

Learning to solve complex challenges

One of the most valuable skills Liam developed through Sparta was the ability to approach unfamiliar challenges with confidence.

Technology is constantly evolving, and developers are regularly required to learn new tools, platforms and ways of working. Sparta’s training encouraged independent problem-solving and helped build the confidence to investigate solutions even when the path forward was not immediately clear.

Today, those skills underpin Liam’s work as a ServiceNow Developer and help him navigate the wide range of technologies and processes involved in enterprise software development.

“AI can make a developer much faster at learning, investigating and solving problems, but you still need the underlying problem-solving skills to use it effectively.”

Rather than focusing solely on technical knowledge, Sparta helped Liam develop a mindset of continuous learning that continues to support him in a fast-moving technology environment.

Delivering secure and scalable solutions

Today, Liam works as a ServiceNow Developer within a leading UK financial services organisation, supporting governance, risk, compliance and security initiatives through automation and workflow design.

ServiceNow plays a critical role in helping large organisations manage complex processes, reduce manual effort and ensure regulatory requirements are met consistently. Liam’s work focuses on developing solutions that transform large volumes of security and compliance data into scalable, auditable workflows that stakeholders can manage with confidence.

A typical day can involve:

Building and enhancing ServiceNow workflows
Investigating defects and resolving technical issues
Creating dashboards and automated tests
Working with stakeholders to understand requirements
Exploring new platform capabilities and opportunities for improvement

Working within a highly regulated environment also means ensuring solutions remain secure, maintainable and adaptable over the long term.

Driving innovation through automation

A key part of Liam’s role is understanding the wider process behind a requirement rather than focusing solely on the technical task itself. By understanding how workflows operate end to end, opportunities to improve efficiency and simplify processes become much easier to identify.

A particularly impactful project involved exploring how cloud security data could be integrated into ServiceNow and mapped against compliance controls. To demonstrate the concept, Liam developed a proof of concept that brought security data into ServiceNow and presented the results through an interactive dashboard.

“The biggest value was that it reframed the problem from ‘we would like to do this, but we’re not sure how’ into a concrete, working approach that stakeholders could assess and choose to take forward.”

Alongside automation, Liam also uses AI to accelerate research, investigate technical challenges and explore potential solutions more efficiently.

“It’s particularly useful for exploring possible solutions, pulling together information from technical documentation and community forums, and rubber-ducking through defects or unfamiliar functionality.”

Looking ahead

Reflecting on his journey so far, Liam believes one of the biggest misconceptions about technology careers is that they are reserved for people with traditional technical backgrounds.

“Most people in tech are regular people working through difficult problems, and there’s a lot of mutual understanding that comes from everyone regularly encountering things they don’t know.”

For Liam, Sparta Global provided the technical foundations, adaptability and confidence needed to succeed in a modern technology environment. His journey demonstrates how continuous learning and a willingness to embrace new challenges can open the door to a rewarding career in technology.