DEV Community: Kirill Omelchenko

Control-freak managers are getting in the way of evolution

Kirill Omelchenko — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 11:19:23 +0000

Originally published on our blog: Control-freak managers are getting in the way of evolution

At 6nomads, we have developed a tool that helps hire remote workers, because we firmly believe the future lies with distributed teams. We were very passionate about promoting this idea, but were met with undefeatable resistance in the face of seemingly progressive managers. You might relate to them more than you expect.

We wanted to write an article to ridicule recruiters, the stiffness of the top IT-companies, and the old ways in which entrepreneurship looks to be stuck. But along the way, we realized that managers, who can’t let go of their primitive need for control, who are ultimately setting development back, are the ones we’re actually mad at. See, HR inevitably ends up mimicking the situation in the market, enterprise is generally unchangeable (at least in the near future). However, leaders can “see the light” and make the future appear just a bit closer.

We do not want to restate the obvious: how easy it has become to connect with someone on the other side of the globe or that companies like InVision, GitLab, Basecamp, Evernote, Ghost, 1password, Wordpress, and many more, have been employing the use of distributed teams for a while now. We want to talk about personal experiences, in the words of those whom you might be more eager to trust.

Our main thesis: talent is distributed equally around the world, opportunities are not.

We got a big kick out of this one when we first launched 6nomads and for a couple of months after that. Originally, this project was meant to help companies hire good designers fast. We wanted to change the market itself, create competition for specialists, all because we could very clearly see that there was a problem.

Fact: sometimes, companies can’t fill designer (as well as many other) vacancies for months on end. The ones they have get stuck with boring projects or become freelancers just so they don’t have to deal with long trial periods and practice tasks that a high-demand expert simply doesn’t have time for. As a result, there’s a huge gap between the employer and the employee, which is full of obstacles, misunderstandings, and distrust. We aim to close that gap with the help of professional expertise.

Nonetheless, we quickly understood that we don’t want to work with IT-corporations. In spite of our meticulous screening process, these companies would sometimes take upwards of 3 months to hire a specialist, bombarding them with pointless formalities to the point where their motivation became almost non-existent. Aside from that, we noticed that, except for a few good words to add to their portfolio, top IT-companies don’t make an effort to be attractive to bright, young talent anymore.

I could have worked for Google, Facebook, Netflix, wherever’s considered cool, nowadays. But why would I? The only argument is: less work, more money. I think that kind of work can suck out one’s soul. I need a creative component, like the one present in game development. Optimizing something for Google so that no user ever notices it, but the company saves millions is great. It’s just that it’s not what I want to do with my life.
— programmer Mark Maratea, DTF

That’s when we decided that our target audience is young, front-line startups, who have smaller teams, but a bigger flame and faith in their product. Companies like these readily hire quality experts, in order to grow more promptly. And (oh, wow!) we discovered, that many managers are all for remote workers.

Only a week later did we realize: young, front-line startups with pleasant founders, realistic ideas, who are growing promptly, are like sunny days in London — much fewer in numbers than we would like. Whereas there are loads of specialists in search of remote work. This became obvious through the applications that we just couldn’t get to.

The more designers’ profiles we looked through, the clearer we could see our initial idea: talent is everywhere, opportunities are not. That’s when we launched our frontend department, then backend. Of course, helping a developer in Siberia find a startup in New York was the obvious way to go.

It was crucial to keep our distance from the resources that were already established (Toptal, Upwork, etc.) and portray strong specialists as remote workers, as opposed to temporary solutions — freelancers and outsourcers.

Why is it that there are so many startups, so many important technical products in San-Francisco, in Silicon Valley, when compared to other places? It can’t be that people are simply smarter or more talented here — there are just as many engineers, designers, and product-people in Mexico, even more in Moscow.
— CEO Evernote, Phil Libin

We started researching the culture that surrounds remote work, taking interviews from CTOs of successful projects, who organize and lead teams of remote workers. We found out the demands for remote workers, hiring criteria, the technical factor in the processes of these teams. Also, we looked at it from the worker’s perspective: collected surveys, figured out what they like most about the whole format and what difficulties they stumbled upon, tried to understand what the ideal remote worker is.

Technology is developing so fast, that in some 30 years people will look back and be fascinated at how offices even existed.
— Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group

After fully submerging ourselves in the topic, one thing was for sure: remote work is not just a trend, not just the smart choice, but the future of IT-companies. Offices will eventually die out, just like the pager, quickly and irreversibly. The best specialists will take it upon themselves to decide where and when they want to work (most of them already do, by working for remote-friendly companies instead of corporations). The only question is, do we want to be on the frontline, or do we want to be left running after the ship that will already have sailed.

I’ve always thought that a lot of Russia’s potential is lost on itself. There are a lot of extremely smart people, who are doing less than they could be, less opportunities for talent, in comparison to the Western world.
— CEO Evernote, Phil Libin

Distributed teams are still in the minority in the world — that much is obvious. What disappoints us is how it’s a topic that isn’t discussed at all: managers don’t even see the difference between an irresponsible freelancer and a full-fledged remote worker. They are convinced that remote workers deserve less pay, that the success of the team depends on all the members sitting together in the same place, and, most importantly, they could not control people, who work remotely.

All of this contradicts basic human logic and the overwhelming advantages of choosing a distributed team, the most important of which is the general access to every specialist. Not only those that live nearby, but the best.

From the very beginning, I tried really hard not to make Evernote a Californian or Russian company. I just said: “Let’s find the best people from the whole world.”
— CEO Evernote, Phil Libin

When searching for workers, limiting yourself by territory seems a little dumb. Yes, you need to adopt new rules of communication, company building, but it’s worth it.
— CTO of Scentbird, Andrey Rebrov

Consciously rejecting the best specialists, endlessly paying recruiters, who just juggle the same resume, infinitely refining the same job description, all of that, just for an office. Which, in spite of everything ends up wasting piles of cash and never excites anyone, even if it has a PlayStation, ping-pong table, hacky sack, bearded barista or cats. Freedom, independence, and self-organization replaced all of these a long time ago.

Hardly anybody would say they actually prefer working in an office, and even if they did, they would immediately follow up with “very early in the mornings, when there isn’t anybody there” or “only on the weekends.
— “Remote”

Why do European developers choose to work remotely for Israeli companies and why do they need two monitors and an old T-shirt?

Kirill Omelchenko — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 14:51:30 +0000

Originally published on our blog: Why do European developers choose to work remotely for Israeli companies and why do they need two monitors and an old T-shirt?

At 6nomads we help IT talent get jobs in the best companies around the world and select interesting projects for their professional growth. At VC, we have already published a series of interviews with global CEOs about hiring and managing distributed teams. This time we decided to talk to the other side - specialists - in order to talk about a still unpopular area where you can and should look for remote vacancies in strong young IT startups —remote work in Israeli companies.

A couple of obvious advantages: working in a familiar time zone, not at night, as in the case of working for American startups, while products are developed for the American market, and salaries are tied to the dollar.

Vacancies in Israeli companies appear on our platform regularly, and recently a few developers at the same time have found jobs working for Israeli products with distributed teams. We decided that this gives us a reason to talk about a couple of cases, so that other specialists would also pay attention to this market, and maybe even to remote work, even if they hadn't done it before. To do this, we talked to two developers who recently, and for the first time in their careers, have found remote work in foreign IT startups. We talked about their searches, impressions, self-discipline in working from home, its advantages, and plans for the future.

Professional direction and plans

For a long time, I was involved in the implementation of a large CRM-system Siebel CRM, rose to the lead, architect, and trainer. But, I was tired of it, because I specialized strictly in one system and understood that then Siebel was there, and tomorrow it could become unnecessary. If you know even one programming language, you are already very much in demand in many companies, regardless of their specialization. Then I decided to try my hand at web development, learned Ruby, then React, and Python.

I had one of my own projects, where I was a co-founder, then worked as a tech lead for a year and a half in a small startup, and when it, as it happens, finished, I decided to look for a remote job. Just because I wanted to work on a foreign project and not move from Moscow, also get a salary tied to the dollar.

Speaking of the American market, Silicon Valley, they are at the forefront of technologies used, so it would be good for a specialist to learn from them for professional growth. I think many developers have an ambitious desire to work for one of the Big Five tech companies (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft), simply because the very fact of passing all the stages of selection and getting an offer is a great achievement. However these companies have no remote options, and the speed of processes and the share of personal participation, of course, is incommensurably small in comparison to young fast startups. That's why there's a lot of turnover: developers come and go.

If amongst IT giants you are a grain of sand in the sea, in a startup you feel the product and you see your contribution to it. Now, I like working in a startup, I'm not afraid of the uncertainty, I understand that a startup is such a thing that today it is doable, and tomorrow it's "Thanks, but it didn't work out" for everyone.

Searching for a remote job

Even before the startup, my last job, had ceased to exist. I had the intention to find a remote position in a foreign project. I had the intention, but I had no idea where to start. I did not know where companies were looking for specialists. To begin with, I did standard operations: I updated LinkedIn and added code to GitHub.

Then my activity and requests apparently helped Facebook to recommend 6nomads to me. I came in, the service offered me the ability to pass through a selection process. At the time, I didn't even have much hope, I didn't think it would lead to a real result, so I took the tests as a training exercise. Why not try it?

The 6nomads expert in my field asked me about my experience and skills, and gave me some tasks to solve. Since I was able to do the task and the Expert review was fine, I got on the platform. Then I received requests for interviews from companies on an increasing basis. It was clear that I wasn't put in touch with everybody: based on the preliminary selection, matching worked and it was successful, almost all the companies were suitable for me.

The perfect match came with an Israeli company, where I work now. Perfect because I liked the person who interviewed me. Then he, the Head of R&D, became my lead. I was hooked on his sincerity, constructive dialogue, criticism and remarks were competent, without being neglectful. By the way, he turned out to be just like he was at the interview.

For comparison, I can cite/give a history of interaction with another company on the platform. I successfully passed the interviews with HR and the CTO, and at the final interview with the CEO he began to convince me that I am worthless, trying to bring down my salary request, which was quite adequate. It seemed strange to me: what was the point of these conversations before? Either you want to hire me or you don't.

My current lead presented his company to me in the first conversation, while the rest did not bother to talk about themselves and wanted me to ask them questions about the company from the very beginning. Then he gave me the task, asked me to outline a plan for its solution and the deadline. I said that I would program the task by the next day. After the conversation, I sat down for the solution and quickly realized that I overestimated myself. Eventually, without getting up from the table, I finished by 8 a.m. the next day. Two hours later I got the answer: "We are ready to make an offer".

Everything happened very quickly: on Thursday we spoke on the phone for the first time, on Sunday we talked for the second time, and I got the task, and on Monday a decision was made.

Working in an Israeli startup

Israel has the same time zone as Moscow, I need not work at night, and we develop the product for the American market, I am more than satisfied with it. One peculiarity: the Tel Aviv team, to which I belong, does not work on Fridays because of the sabbath, but works on Sundays.

After the offer, I was asked if I would like to go to Israel for a meeting with the team. I agreed of course. I spent two weeks in Israel, where we worked in the office, talked, spent time together.

The main impression was people! I liked them very much. We gathered strong professionals, all with a great sense of humor. Part of the team lives in Tel Aviv, and remote developers came from Romania and Ukraine.

The team was assembled to get to know each other: when the employees talked, made friends, then it would be much easier for them to interact effectively, to negotiate in chats. Besides, we were trained there. Since the startup is connected with finance, its regulation implies special training of employees in fraud security, and other nuances of work.

Now, especially after the trip, I am very satisfied with the project and the team I got into. The company is developing rapidly: there were 7 people in the spring and now there are 30. The founders are not startup boys, but serious adults who know the market and what to do, they have managed to build transparent and clear processes, which is particularly encouraging, especially in contrast to my past experience.

Remote work

As for formalities, I work as a contractor. This is a standard practice in startups employing specialists from all over the world. I don't see any drawbacks in this yet. I don't aspire to any social packages and so on, you better pay me more, and I will solve the issue of insurance, hospitalization and how many teeth to treat per year. I understand that I may be fired one day, that the project may close down, or that for some technical reasons they may not be able to continue working with me, but it does not bother me, I will find a job. It's hard to find good developers today.

I have worked a lot in banks, where people are always hired in tutus. Yes, it's a stable job, it's an incredible social package, good money that drips regularly, but everything you do is often not even used, 90% of the features you create are immediately thrown away. So you don't even make a small piece of something big, it really was pissing me off. Now I'd rather go to freelance than go back to the big company.

As for my remote working experience, I had it when I was working on my project with three other developers. No office, we worked from home, we called each other. But, of course, this was not like organizing the processes in the project where I work now.

I wasn't even sure I could do my job from home. I had prepared thoroughly, organized a good, comfortable workplace: I bought a table with height adjustment to work standing up periodically, and two monitors with stands. In general, I made it so that I could disconnect from everything when I sat down at the workplace. Yes, the kitchen is next to me, sometimes I can lie on the sofa in broad daylight, but when I sit down at the table, I work. The place of work has to be almost sacred to make it easier to concentrate.

I also noted what helps self-discipline better than any control: I like the team so much, people are charged, do something cool, that I just can't afford not to. I want to talk about what I have done in the past day on the morning stand-up. This switches me on. Sometimes it's lazy for 3-4 hours in the afternoon, but then you realize that the work isn't done enough, you sit down and write the code until nightfall. Because the main thing is the result, and I want to show it. Responsibility to the team is a big driving force, and this is despite the fact that I am a very lazy person.

About yourself and moving to Germany

I lived in Nizhny Novgorod, studied software engineering, and am in my third year, I started working in software engineering. I worked for Netcracker for a year and then for 4 months in another company, where I got a better offer.

After that, I went to Germany to study HCI (Human-computer interaction), and since I did not know how much time I would spend on master's studies, I refused to work. My studies turned out to be difficult, I hadn't worked for a year, except little projects sometimes I wasn't involved in full-fledged development.

A year later, I got used to my studies. However I had a student visa and couldn't officially work in Germany.

Job Search

I signed up at 6nomads, I don't even remember how I learned about the service. Shortly after the registration and selection process, I was contacted by a manager to whom I told about my situation with Germany and my studies.

The service turned out to be convenient: it performs its function, it is easy to contact and correspond with companies there, but its main advantage is still the people who helped and led me from accidental registration to employment in a foreign company.

On the site I had time to talk to three companies: I did not fit in with the St. Petersburg project, the company from South Africa gave up on me because of fears that I would not be able to combine a full-fledged job with the study, and with the latter — with a company from Israel, which is engaged in developing an e-learning platform for the American market — everything worked out/the puzzle has evolved.

I was interviewed and then was given a task to solve immediately, where I made a mistake and was offered to fix it. But I was in the middle of an exam period, and I said I couldn't get back to the task until two weeks later. In the end for the second time, I passed this step successfully, then I talked to the CEO of the company, and soon I got an offer.

Remote work

I hadn't had any remote experience before, and the entire project team I've been assigned to is distributed. Mostly guys from Eastern Europe, only CEO is in Israel. I work from home. Until I dealt with co-working in Germany, I moved to another city less than a week ago and didn't have the time. But I plan to find a workplace outside the home, to choose a comfortable co-working.

It's not always possible to create a fully working atmosphere at home without being distracted, and the boundaries between work and home are blurred. Life becomes a half-working, half-home, and you can't switch completely. So when I work at home, I dress as if I were at work, and when I'm resting, I dress in sports pants and an old t-shirt with a cartoon print. It helps me to draw an artificial line between work and home.

In addition, the specifics of the work involves tracking time, which you spend on the task. It motivates, you can't spend the whole day watching youtube, and then track 8 hours for 2 lines of code. That's why everything here is transparent. In general, for a remote specialist will be very useful.

The whole team communicates in Slack, daily standups are held in writing, there are weekly team calls and within the company, and also a weekly face-to-face with a team lead.

If we compare it with previous work experience, sometimes we had to go through 7 management circles to get through to the right person when the company has 1,300 employees. At the remote company, however, everybody can contact everyone directly, but this type of work is suitable for smaller teams, I think.

Even though we are an Israeli startup, we work according to the usual calendar - Monday through Friday. But if you want, you can even work the first 20 days of the month without a weekend, and then rest.

I am a contractor: I have an open-ended contract for the provision of services. I use my salary to rent housing in Europe, eat well, buy clothes, and also enough for leisure, travel and even for savings.