Interview. What should an engineer expect from working at a European startup, how are interviews being conducted, and is it difficult to adapt

Image: Pexels



In the past few years, the Baltic countries have experienced a boom in IT startups. In only one small Estonia, several companies were able to achieve unicorn status at once, that is, their capitalization exceeded $ 1 billion. Such companies actively hire developers and help them with relocation.



Today I talked with Boris Vnukov , who works as a Lead backend developer at the Bolt startup - this is “European Uber” and one of Estonia’s unicorns . We discussed a number of career issues: from organizing interviews and workflow in startups to the difficulties of adapting and comparing Tallinn with Moscow.

Note : Bolt is currently hosting an online championship for developers . Winners will be able to win money - the prize fund is 350 thousand rubles, and the best developers will have the opportunity to relocate to Europe.

To begin with, how much does the work of a programmer in a European startup differ from the everyday work of a developer in Russian companies?

In fact, from the point of view of approaches and methodologies there are not so many differences. For example, I used to work at “Consultant Plus” - there the engineers were quite up to date with all the current trends, read the same resources as colleagues in the current company.



Developers are an international community, all share some finds and approaches, describe their experience. So in Russia I worked with Kanban, was aware of new tools, the work itself was not very different. Companies do not invent development methodologies, everyone uses existing tools - this is the property of the entire community, simply the tasks can be different.



Another thing is that not all companies, especially in Russia, have a dedicated person who is responsible for introducing innovations. In Europe, this often happens - there may be a dedicated officer who selects the development and approaches suitable for the company's tasks, and then carries out their implementation and evaluates the effectiveness. But in startups this is usually not, all initiatives come from below. This is cool to work in such companies - there is a good balance of initiative and responsibility. You yourself can choose how you want to work, what tools to use, but you need to justify your choice and be responsible for the result.

How is development at Bolt built? What does a workflow look like from the appearance of a task to its implementation?

Everything works quite simply, we have two areas of development - the development of a digital platform and the product itself. The developer teams are distributed in these two areas.



When a business receives a request, our project managers analyze it. If at this stage there are no questions, then the task goes to the technical team, where the engineers break it down into specific tasks, plan development sprints and begin implementation. Then tests, documentation, output to production, improvements and corrections - continuous integration and continuous development.



If we talk about development methodologies, then there are no strict policies and rules. Each team can work as she likes - the main thing is to give a result. But basically everyone uses Scrum and Kanban, it's hard to come up with something new here.

And between the teams there is some kind of exchange of information about such implementations and innovations?

Yes, we periodically hold internal meetings where people in fact talk about what tools they implemented, what results they expected to get, if any unexpected problems got out, which eventually was achieved. This helps to conclude whether some kind of hype technology was worth the time and resources spent on it.



That is, there is no task to prove that you were right when you offered to try some kind of tool. If he did not fit, then this is also the result, and all colleagues need to be told about this so that they understand what to expect and, possibly, save time and energy.

Let's move on to career issues. What developers are currently looking for in the same Bolt? Do I need to be a cool lord to move to a European startup?

We have a startup that is booming, so the tasks and approach to hiring engineers are changing. For example, when I first arrived, the development team consisted of about 15 developers. Then, of course, only seniors were hired, because there are few people, much depends on each, it is important to do everything well, to cut the product.



Then the company grew, attracted rounds of financing, became a unicorn - that is, capitalization is now more than $ 1 billion. The technical staff has also grown, now they are hiring middle and juniors - because some teams have tasks that need such specialists. Now it is possible to grow frames inside. It turns out that not only the most experienced engineers have a chance to move to work in a European startup.

Another interesting point in this regard - how are the interviews arranged? What approach: it is important to solve puzzles, talk about algorithms, how many stages, how does it look at all?

We have the following process in Bolt: first they give a link to a simple task on Hackerrank, you need to solve it in a certain time, no one is watching the candidate at this moment. This is the primary filter - by the way, a surprisingly large number of people cannot pass it for various reasons. If all is well, then a couple of phone calls in Skype or Zoom go through, there are already engineers there who also offer to solve the problem.



At the first and second interviews, the task is more a topic for conversation. Typically, tasks are selected so that they can be solved in several ways. And the choice of a specific solution - just becomes the food for a conversation with the candidate. There is an opportunity to ask questions in order to understand experience, the approach to a person’s work, to understand whether it will be comfortable to work with him. On the third call, principal engineers are already connected, we are talking about architecture, tasks revolve around it.



The final stage, those specialists who are in principle ready to make an offer are paid a visit to the office. This helps people understand who they will work with, evaluate the office, city and other points. If everyone is happy with everything, then the process is already debugged well - they help both the engineer and the family to move, find an apartment, kindergartens for children, etc.



But in general, by the way, occasionally there are opportunities to move according to a simpler scheme. For example, now we have an online championship for developers . Based on the results of the competition, talented engineers can be offered an offer after just one interview - it will take no more than a day to do everything.

If we talk about long-term career paths, how do European companies approach the development of engineers? What are the growth paths?

Well, here, too, it's hard to come up with something new. Firstly, my company has a budget for self-development - each developer has a certain amount per year that he can spend on something useful: a conference ticket, literature, some subscriptions, etc. Secondly, in terms of skills you grow in any case - a startup is developing, new tasks appear.



It is clear that at a certain level - as a rule, this is a senior - there may be a fork: go to management or study some field in-depth. A specialist can start with the role of team lead and develop further in this direction.



On the other hand, there are always engineers who are not very interested in working with people a lot, they are more interested in code, algorithms, infrastructure, that's all. For such post-senior engineer, there are roles, for example, staff engineer and even principal engineer - this is a specialist who does not lead people, but acts as a leader of opinions. Since such an engineer is very experienced, knows the entire system and platform of the company thoroughly, he can choose the direction of development of the company's technologies. He understands the impact of innovation in general, and not on the specific tasks of a particular team. So such initiatives from above are very important, and being the one who generates them is an excellent development path.

What is Estonia and Tallinn today in terms of relocation? What to expect and what to prepare for?

Good question. Actually, I moved from Moscow, and myself from Korolev, near Moscow. If we compare Tallinn with Moscow, then there are no people in it at all. Local traffic jams - this is something worth two minutes, that is, for a Muscovite is simply ridiculous.



About 400 thousand people live in Tallinn, that is, somewhere around one and a half my relatives are the Queen. But at the same time, the city has all the infrastructure necessary for life - shopping centers, schools, kindergartens, everywhere you can walk. No need to go to work - 10 minutes and you're in the office. No need to travel to walk in the center - to the old town 5 minutes on foot.







No need to carry children to study - school, again, in ten minutes. The nearest supermarket is also a couple of minutes on foot, to the farthest you need to drive about seven minutes by car. I can even walk from the airport to the house either on foot or by tram!



In general, it is comfortable here, but such a life simply can not be compared with a megalopolis. There are fewer opportunities for leisure - although they are, I often go to concerts by foreign stars. But if there are dozens of theaters in Moscow, then this is not so. By the way, until recently, there was not even Ikea in Tallinn.



Whether you like it or not depends on your needs. For example, I have family and children - the city is excellent for such a life, full of opportunities for playing sports. This all fits perfectly with the lack of crowds of people at any site and stadium.

What about professional networking?

This is one of the interesting points. Despite the fact that we are talking about the “one and a half Queen”, the number of various meetings, conferences and events for developers is just off scale. In the Baltic States and Estonia, there is a boom in technology startups, companies are very open, they often hold open meetings, share their experiences.



As a result, you can score a schedule very easily - go to events of great companies a couple of times a week. This allows you to establish horizontal connections, to understand how similar problems are solved by colleagues from other companies. In this regard, the movement is very active, it surprised me at the time.

And finally, how easy is it for a Russian-speaking developer to get comfortable in the Baltic countries? Is there a difference in mentality?

It's hard to talk about all the companies in the country as a whole, but there shouldn't be a problem with startups like Bolt. Firstly, there are a large number of Russian-speaking engineers. And reaching out to your own for the first time after moving is natural. And it seems to me that there will be more people close in mentality from the very beginning than when moving to some kind of American startup.



This is very good both in terms of work and the family is easier - wives and children also communicate, everyone goes to visit each other, etc. Well, in general, since there are almost 40 nationalities in the main office alone, it is quite easy to get involved in a multicultural environment, and this is of interest.



In addition, there are activities that rally the team as a whole - our company, for example, travels to different countries a couple of times a year with the whole team. As a result, I have already visited places like South Africa, where I myself would hardly have gotten.







Who is younger and can organize himself - to find partners in the office for going to the bar on Friday is not a problem at all. So there are no special problems with adaptation, and you should not be afraid of moving.