Who is IT Area Lead at Domclick?
In the era of rapid digitalization, when the virtual world is becoming an integral part of our lives, the role of IT specialists increases many times over. This is especially true for companies that are actively implementing digital solutions, making their customers' lives more comfortable and accessible. But who is at the head of this process? Who is responsible for the smooth operation of the platform, the implementation of new technologies and the development of digital service? In this article, I will talk about the role of IT Area Lead at Domclick, what skills this person should have and what challenges he faces every day.
Who is ITAL?
The ITAL position at Domclick is similar to the Team Lead position at many companies, but with a number of differences (more responsibilities). In a standard case, the Team Lead is responsible for organizing the work of a development team (or several teams), helps manage projects and distribute tasks, as well as motivate and develop employees. At Domclick, ITAL, in addition to the above responsibilities (there are 2 to 5 teams per IT lead, with an average of 10 to 30 people subordinated), deals with architectural issues for his group of services, and is also more focused on inter-team work and significantly immersed in business processes.
The IT Area Lead reports to the viceCTO (viceCTO is focused on strategic management and development of a specific area in the company, manages several ITALs), who in turn reports to the CTO (Chief Technology Officer, the highest technical manager in the company).
Let's take a closer look at all areas of responsibility.
Stable operation and development of controlled services
The face of our work and the quality indicator of the built processes are stable services. Domclick continues to develop in “startup mode” and every day a huge number of teams publish a significant number of releases and fixes (some teams “roll out” releases and fixes more than twice a day, with the exception of Holy Friday).
In order to ensure that the number of nines in the SLA does not decrease, the following points must be implemented in each team:
Monitoring service availability. The support team and development team should learn about any problems before a significant portion of users. In the event of an incident during working hours, the assigned team should put features aside and prioritize problem resolution. And outside working hours, this will be done by a pre-assigned and trained service duty officer.
Regular debriefing after incidents occur (Postmortem), development and implementation of systemic measures (in Domklik, incidents are dealt with weekly).
Prompt closure of critical vulnerabilities (identified through automated scanners or during pentesting) and bugs.
Compliance with the company's architectural standards (some of which require connecting services to fault-tolerant infrastructure solutions).
For iterative development of services, it is highly desirable to implement the following practices:
Documentation management. For example, Swagger for external service consumers and docstring/wiki for new team developers.
Continuous knowledge sharing within the team to understand the connections between services and customer journeys and reduce bus factor within the team.
Full HR cycle
The HR cycle allows systematizing work with personnel and implementing effective processes of hiring, training, motivation and management. The full cycle performed by the IT leader in Domklik can be divided into the following stages:
Submitting an application for the selection and initial selection of candidates.
Conducting interviews, personally or through your subordinates.
Final agreement on the terms of employment for submitting an offer.
Adaptation in the first days, as well as assistance in obtaining equipment, software and access. In Domklik, with face-to-face hiring, all these points are completed on the day of hiring.
Setting goals for the probationary period, monitoring them and making a decision on passing.
Conducting one-on-one meetings, within the framework of which a career dialogue is built with a subordinate and growth points are identified.
Quarterly assessment of the performance and values of subordinates.
Promotion of employees both in income and position.
Rotating an engineer to other teams or parting with him if it is time for the employee to move on for new experience.
When forming new teams, the HR function takes a lot of time, but after six months to a year of the team's work and reaching a certain maturity, it stops taking up a lot of resources for support, which allows ITAL to increase the number of subordinates and teams.
Business support
The role of the IT leader goes beyond simple technical support and includes a deep understanding of business processes and goals, and requires the ability to effectively interact with business specialists. If ITAL is involved in the discussion of important tasks, it is expected that, as an engineer with extensive technical experience, he will help find the cheapest development paths (without losing quality). Thanks to a good understanding of the development cycles in different teams, an experienced IT leader will calculate all obvious difficulties in advance, think through what work can be done in parallel by different development groups and plan in advance the completion of mandatory steps – contacting the architectural committee, passing KB checks, etc. When discussing tasks, ITAL, if necessary, explains complex technical terms and architectural approaches in simple language. To determine the approximate “cost” of a major revision, the IT manager estimates the development costs in man-days (using the previously described methodology).
How to grow in ITAL?
The path to becoming an IT manager is unique for each specialist. But there are common features. In addition to the most obvious points (studying the technical field and developing social skills), you need to:
Be prepared for the injustices of this world – an IT leader often takes all the negative aspects onto himself, conveying only the essence of the task to his subordinates.
In any stressful situation, project calm and predictability.
Try to help as many counterparties as possible. This allows you to gain diverse experience and establish stable inter-team connections.
When there is a conflict of interest, decisions must be made based on the good of the company as a whole, even if it goes against the interests of the team.
How to grow ITALs?
The need for IT managers in our industry is extremely high, so in any favorable situation it is necessary to form a personnel reserve. If during a career dialogue you heard from your subordinate a desire to grow into an IT leader, then it is necessary to help prepare for this role using the following steps:
Turnkey management of medium and large inter-team projects. By delegating responsibility, you allow the subordinate to prove himself. You can monitor the progress of the project and help with your experience in making key decisions within the framework of regular syncs.
If your potential successor is already in the position of tech lead, it makes sense to regularly discuss with him the development and promotion of the members of the team entrusted to him. This will allow you to immerse yourself in people management and learn how to manage the limited resources of the company.
When you go on vacation, leave your successor “in charge”. Based on the number of unresolved issues, you will understand the candidate's level of readiness and outline the further vector of development.
If your “padawan” has grown to the required level, then he can wait for your promotion and take the vacant place, or move to the role of leader in other teams (if there are such vacancies).
Conclusion
Working as ITAL at Domclick is not just a profession, but a mission. It is an opportunity to use your knowledge and experience to make this world a better place, influencing more processes and, ultimately, doing good with the hands of others. By developing Domclick's infrastructure, IT Area Lead helps millions of people in Russia to get convenient digital services in the real estate sector, while building their own path to happiness and well-being.
