5 mistakes and 5 strong moves
“So you chose a place of work, spent some time there, half a year or a year, and now you understand that you can’t finish with your colleagues, the tasks are already uninteresting – you learned something, and then some kind of routine. In a good way, it is important to understand: “Here I learned everything, I close this story for myself and go to the next one.” Those. the mistake is to sit in one place of work for too long, ”recommends Ilya Shishkov.
Strong move #4. Choose one of the development strategies in the IT field and move according to it:
a) a job in one of the leading IT companies and gradual career growth;
b) movement between companies with more explosive pay and job growth.
“There is a development path: to come initially to some cool company — Yandex, Tinkoff, etc. — and work there to win, because the culture of these companies allows you to succeed if you work hard. Then it will not be explosive growth, you will progressively move forward.
There is a second option: you can move between companies. Perhaps in this way you will even return to the company with which you started, but this is not necessary. Obviously, this gives a more explosive growth in wages. I had an example in Rambler: somehow I found a guy who had never been in the IT field, but took courses, and I saw at the interview that he was good at something. I took him on an internship, and at that time we paid him little money – about 30 thousand rubles. He worked, developed, and one day came with the words: “Another company is hunting me for 150 thousand rubles.” As part of a company, you usually don’t have the option of “raising a person twice”, you are physically unable to do this, so you had to part with a person. There are really many such cases: you raised a person, revealed them, and then he goes to where he is already taken as a full-fledged specialist.
Such growth is taking place, and it is really easier. In one of the reports, I said that it is convenient to be a developer – you win anyway. For example, you went to an interview, got an offer. If you like it in your company, you show them this offer, and they try to keep you, somehow compensate for this by making you a counteroffer. If you don’t like the company, you can go to that other one and get some new conditions, ”explains Andrey Smirnov.
Mistake #5. Stagnate, ignore industry trends. Use in work only those approaches, methods and tools to which the specialist is accustomed.
“In the field of software, and in principle in the IT field, stagnation is like suicide. The sphere is actively developing, evolving, and if a person is not ready to change tools, approaches, etc., then he either becomes a hardcore tech lead or leaves the profession,” says Alexander Kirillov.
Strong move #5. To study trends, new approaches, methods, tools, including through participation in the conference. Start public speaking by participating in meetups within the company.
“Conferences are a good thing to discover what you didn’t know before, to see what approaches other specialists use. I understand that neither I nor anyone else will teach the audience something new at the conference. The task of the conference and the speaker often comes down to setting a vector, taking a person out of his usual environment, showing that there is something else, new, unlike.
The conference is one way to keep abreast of what is happening in the industry right now. If you do not follow the information flow, I’m afraid you can find yourself in an information hole”, Alexander Kirillov warns.
In addition, participation in conferences as a speaker provides other benefits:
“It is useful to be a speaker for various reasons. First, it is the development of a personal brand. You are considered a recognized specialist. Such people are more valued in the market when changing jobs. Secondly, the social connections that are formed at these conferences often help in the work. For example, you cannot solve a problem within your company, and you need to contact a specialist in some field. You know that you definitely have people who can help.
Not so long ago we recorded a season of Frontend Weekend releases. The bottom line is that we did it almost for free. I have a friend Gleb, whom I met in the program committee of the Frontend Conf. He says: “Let’s shoot in my Skillbox, I will agree with everyone.” 8 people agreed to sign up for two-hour slots on Saturday-Sunday so that I could film them all at one time – these are the ones I met through conferences. I met the guys who came to help with the shooting in Ivanovo on their podcast “We are doomed”. In the end, all these social connections translated into the fact that I filmed a season of a video podcast for free.
Public speaking experience also helps at work. As a leader, candidates come to me more often, because they know that their leader will be not just an abstract person, but a dude who speaks,” Andrey Smirnov shares.
At the same time, it is not necessary to immediately start with participation in major conferences. To get started, you can try your hand at meetups within the company:
“At first, I began to speak at meetups within the company. Sometimes, we didn’t even leave for the weekend: on Saturday we came to the office in order to listen to something new, to try, there were various master classes. […] At some point, internal events were not enough. I wanted to share my expertise not only within the team, but also outside.
We worked in Ulyanovsk, and the Stachka conference was held there annually, where speakers came from all over Russia and not only from Russia. Our company was invited to participate in the organization of this conference, as well as to act as speakers. Stachka was my first conference, but since I had the experience of internal performances, everything turned out pretty well, ”says Alexander Kirillov.
conclusions
What NOT to do for a novice IT specialist:
Pay attention only to studying at the university, not gaining experience with products, code and tools;
Be guided by unrealistic ideas – both about the industry as a whole and about specific approaches, methods, tools. Be limited only to theoretical knowledge;
Pick your first job at random.
To linger at the place of work, even if you have grown out of the tasks that are solved in this position / at the level of this company.
Stagnate, ignore industry trends. Use in work only those approaches, methods and tools to which the specialist is accustomed.
What a novice IT specialist should do:
Build background while working on projects. With the help of online courses, get an additional specialty – software tester, Python developer, Data Scientist.
Immerse yourself in an environment where experts solve real problems to see what the industry / specialty is like and observe the work of more experienced employees.
Determine what is important for you in the company – systematic work or dynamism. When choosing a company, evaluate your own opportunities for development in it. Set evaluation criteria and compare companies by analyzing by criteria.
Choose one of the development strategies in the IT field and move according to it:
a) a job in one of the leading IT companies and gradual career growth;
b) movement between companies with more explosive pay and job growth.
To study trends, new approaches, methods, tools, including through participation in the conference. Start public speaking by participating in meetups within the company.
One of the important skills that is needed in any field of activity is the ability to put forward hypotheses. If a person knows how to put forward hypotheses, he is able to offer not one solution, but several, to solve a problem, and then choose the optimal one from them.
I am creating an online course for high school and undergraduate students on hypotheses and invite those who wish (again high school students and students) to test it for free. You can sign up by contacting me:
