The story of the youngest PSB programmer: the hackathon became the door to the bank
It so happened that I am the youngest developer at PSB: when I came to work in the bank, I was 20 years old. In anticipation of the programmer’s day, I want to share a story about how participation in a hackathon can change your fate almost in an instant.
Two years ago, I tried my hand at the Promsvyazbank hackathon in Samara as a participant, and now I am helping with the case of our bank at VK Hackathon, which will be held on September 27-29 in St. Petersburg. I will act there as a mentor, I will direct the guys to new ideas and help in their implementation. There is something exciting about this.
It's funny that I got to my first hackathon almost by accident. I just heard that such an event would be held in Samara, and decided to do two useful things at once: to participate in the competition and at the same time visit my aunt who lives in this city. I applied, bought expensive tickets (I then lived in St. Petersburg). And suddenly a nuisance: my application did not pass. I wrote to the organizers, asked for permission to come and join some team. As a result, he joined a group of three people, among whom there was just no developer.
We have proposed a new online bank for medium and small businesses, in which the education of a client of financial literacy occupied an important place. There was a timeline with current and upcoming operations. For future events, video tips were given on how to do this. We also made a counterparty rating showing the level of reliability of those with whom the client is doing business. All these small ideas made up the general concept of the bank for medium and small businesses, mentors liked it, and as a result, we took second place at the hackathon.
After the event, we stayed on the site for a long time, communicated with the organizers. Many participants parted on trains, and I needed a plane to Moscow. The airport in Samara is far from the city, and I went there with the organizers in a minibus. We talked a lot along the way and eventually agreed that they would call me for an interview.
At the hackathon, do not miss the opportunity to talk with mentors. Organizers come there with their tasks, participants - with their ideas. And it is important that the thoughts of the participants are in line with the tasks that the organizer lays down. At the hackathon in Samara, we bombarded everyone with our questions, received good feedback, and this ultimately contributed to the victory. Sociability gives a result.
Further events developed very dynamically. I flew from Samara to Moscow, before the departure of the peregrine falcon was 4 hours. Here HR writes to the post office, offers to schedule a skype interview. I described the situation and offered to drive straight to the office, especially since he was not far from the station, on Stromynka. He talked for an hour and a half and returned to the train. The very next day, they called me back, said that they took me to PSB, and on the same day I quit my old job.
There were reasons for such sudden movements. Two years ago, I studied at the ITMO University at a department quite well-known among programmers. At that time, due to problems with mathematical analysis, I had to transfer to another department, which was much less interesting to me. The desire to continue training was completely lost. Probably because of this, moving from Petersburg to Moscow was relatively easy for me.
Later, starting to work in Moscow, I transferred to ITMO in the evening department at the information security department and continued my studies.
It is expected that after the victory I wanted to once again go to some hackathon. I took part in 4 more contests, in two of them I even won a prize. A good bonus from all the successes at the hackathons were good prizes, they fueled interest even more.
2 weeks after the Samara one, a hackathon organized by Alfa Bank and CROC took place. There, our team took first place with the idea of building a 360 rating inside the company. We wrote an application that conducted a small questionnaire, collected assessments from other people and built a portrait of the employee, helping to identify talents at an early stage of their development.
We went to the hackathon in Innopolis with the concept of an agricultural gardener drone. We found a drone that could be easily programmed and made to fly along a given path independently. We wrote a small flyby program and presented it at the competition. The drone flew around the territory and looked for plants, took their photos. The photos fell into an analyzer with machine learning, which determines the type of plant and its possible diseases.
A few months later, at the hackathon in St. Petersburg, luck smiled at us again. By the time I was already working at the bank, it was quite difficult to break out. There we presented something like interactive billboards at the stops that scanned the face, through FindFace we found the VK page, extracted information and offered suitable vacancies. A kind of interactive HR-assistant.
By the next hackathon I was very tired, and the desire to continue was gone. Having a permanent job, it is difficult to find a competition that is held at a convenient time, does not interfere with work and is built around an interesting topic.
Probably worth telling when I decided to become a programmer. This happened at the Lyceum: I began to decide on the future, I heard someone's story about the large salaries of programmers and interesting tasks. Then I became interested in programming olympiads. As a result of winning one of these Olympiads, I was able to enter ITMO.
It seems to me that Olympiad programming gives a good start in the career of a developer. Olympiad problems are more mathematics, algorithms. Solving them, you begin to understand how the algorithms and the computer as a whole work, and already with this understanding you come into commercial development.
Interestingly, in the Olympiad programming there is a command component. There is a format for the Olympics when teams of 3 people compete. Usually one sits at a computer and writes a program, another helps him, a third tries to solve the following problem. Because everything is there for speed, only 5 hours and from 5 to 10 tasks are given. I acquired many useful teamwork skills there.
Once upon a time there was a stereotype that programmers are people in gray sweaters and glasses, stooped, quiet boys. Now everything is wrong. Developers are more and more valued who not only write code well, but also know how to communicate and offer ideas. The community of programmers has grown so much, it has become so open that any student, whether he has a desire and a mathematical mindset, can learn to write code and choose this profession.
Among my colleagues there are people with the most diverse interests, hobbies and characters. The programmer world has become very bright, and I'm glad that I am part of this big friendly party. Happy holiday, colleagues!
Two years ago, I tried my hand at the Promsvyazbank hackathon in Samara as a participant, and now I am helping with the case of our bank at VK Hackathon, which will be held on September 27-29 in St. Petersburg. I will act there as a mentor, I will direct the guys to new ideas and help in their implementation. There is something exciting about this.
To Samara
It's funny that I got to my first hackathon almost by accident. I just heard that such an event would be held in Samara, and decided to do two useful things at once: to participate in the competition and at the same time visit my aunt who lives in this city. I applied, bought expensive tickets (I then lived in St. Petersburg). And suddenly a nuisance: my application did not pass. I wrote to the organizers, asked for permission to come and join some team. As a result, he joined a group of three people, among whom there was just no developer.
We have proposed a new online bank for medium and small businesses, in which the education of a client of financial literacy occupied an important place. There was a timeline with current and upcoming operations. For future events, video tips were given on how to do this. We also made a counterparty rating showing the level of reliability of those with whom the client is doing business. All these small ideas made up the general concept of the bank for medium and small businesses, mentors liked it, and as a result, we took second place at the hackathon.
The wonders of communication
After the event, we stayed on the site for a long time, communicated with the organizers. Many participants parted on trains, and I needed a plane to Moscow. The airport in Samara is far from the city, and I went there with the organizers in a minibus. We talked a lot along the way and eventually agreed that they would call me for an interview.
At the hackathon, do not miss the opportunity to talk with mentors. Organizers come there with their tasks, participants - with their ideas. And it is important that the thoughts of the participants are in line with the tasks that the organizer lays down. At the hackathon in Samara, we bombarded everyone with our questions, received good feedback, and this ultimately contributed to the victory. Sociability gives a result.
Further events developed very dynamically. I flew from Samara to Moscow, before the departure of the peregrine falcon was 4 hours. Here HR writes to the post office, offers to schedule a skype interview. I described the situation and offered to drive straight to the office, especially since he was not far from the station, on Stromynka. He talked for an hour and a half and returned to the train. The very next day, they called me back, said that they took me to PSB, and on the same day I quit my old job.
There were reasons for such sudden movements. Two years ago, I studied at the ITMO University at a department quite well-known among programmers. At that time, due to problems with mathematical analysis, I had to transfer to another department, which was much less interesting to me. The desire to continue training was completely lost. Probably because of this, moving from Petersburg to Moscow was relatively easy for me.
Later, starting to work in Moscow, I transferred to ITMO in the evening department at the information security department and continued my studies.
Hackathon after hackathon
It is expected that after the victory I wanted to once again go to some hackathon. I took part in 4 more contests, in two of them I even won a prize. A good bonus from all the successes at the hackathons were good prizes, they fueled interest even more.
2 weeks after the Samara one, a hackathon organized by Alfa Bank and CROC took place. There, our team took first place with the idea of building a 360 rating inside the company. We wrote an application that conducted a small questionnaire, collected assessments from other people and built a portrait of the employee, helping to identify talents at an early stage of their development.
We went to the hackathon in Innopolis with the concept of an agricultural gardener drone. We found a drone that could be easily programmed and made to fly along a given path independently. We wrote a small flyby program and presented it at the competition. The drone flew around the territory and looked for plants, took their photos. The photos fell into an analyzer with machine learning, which determines the type of plant and its possible diseases.
A few months later, at the hackathon in St. Petersburg, luck smiled at us again. By the time I was already working at the bank, it was quite difficult to break out. There we presented something like interactive billboards at the stops that scanned the face, through FindFace we found the VK page, extracted information and offered suitable vacancies. A kind of interactive HR-assistant.
By the next hackathon I was very tired, and the desire to continue was gone. Having a permanent job, it is difficult to find a competition that is held at a convenient time, does not interfere with work and is built around an interesting topic.
First there were olympiads
Probably worth telling when I decided to become a programmer. This happened at the Lyceum: I began to decide on the future, I heard someone's story about the large salaries of programmers and interesting tasks. Then I became interested in programming olympiads. As a result of winning one of these Olympiads, I was able to enter ITMO.
It seems to me that Olympiad programming gives a good start in the career of a developer. Olympiad problems are more mathematics, algorithms. Solving them, you begin to understand how the algorithms and the computer as a whole work, and already with this understanding you come into commercial development.
Interestingly, in the Olympiad programming there is a command component. There is a format for the Olympics when teams of 3 people compete. Usually one sits at a computer and writes a program, another helps him, a third tries to solve the following problem. Because everything is there for speed, only 5 hours and from 5 to 10 tasks are given. I acquired many useful teamwork skills there.
Forget stereotypes
Once upon a time there was a stereotype that programmers are people in gray sweaters and glasses, stooped, quiet boys. Now everything is wrong. Developers are more and more valued who not only write code well, but also know how to communicate and offer ideas. The community of programmers has grown so much, it has become so open that any student, whether he has a desire and a mathematical mindset, can learn to write code and choose this profession.
Among my colleagues there are people with the most diverse interests, hobbies and characters. The programmer world has become very bright, and I'm glad that I am part of this big friendly party. Happy holiday, colleagues!
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