How to open an office abroad - part one. What for?
The theme of moving your mortal body from one country to another is open, it would seem, from all sides. Someone says it's time. Someone says that the first do not understand anything and it is not time at all. Someone writes how to buy buckwheat in America, and someone writes how to find a job in London if you only know Russian abusive.
However, what the move looks like from the point of view of the company, the question is almost not covered. But this topic has a lot of interesting things, and not just for big bosses. But budgets, headcounts , metrics, and more are insanely boring for developers. What is it - to open an office abroad, why, how much and how? And, most importantly, how can our IT brother benefit from this?
The article turns out to be unrealistically large, so in this series the answer to the question: “Why?”
For starters, a little background and ideas. Hi, my name is Eugene, for a long time I was a frontend team lead at Wrike, then a manager, and then fuck, bang, and we open an office in Prague, and I'm going to be the director of Wrike Prague. It sounds rosy, but in fact Ecclesiastes was right, a thousand times right.
The motives for personal relocation are usually understandable: try something new, learn a language, financial issues, politics, security, and so on. But why would any company open a development office in another country? After all, it’s expensive, it’s not clear what kind of market there is, and indeed ... There can be several reasons, and each one can benefit.
It was believed that many top developers would like to work abroad. This is not always the case, and not always the top ones, and in general, one can run into huge disputes, again returning us to the eternal question of the letter B: "Fell or not Fell . " Nevertheless, there is an outflow, and this is a fact. But to leave for an incomprehensible company, it is not clear with what culture it is unclear which country is scary. This is the whole salt. The opening of a foreign office increases the chance to catch good employees who would like to relocate to another country with minimal discomfort.
Advice
Sometimes it seems that IT, like a black hole, only absorbs and gives nothing away. And more and more new specialists entering the market end up in an endless stream in its bottomless body. Personnel hunger forces companies to search for new territories and drives them, as in the era of great conquests, across the ocean. The decision is not easy, no one knows what kind of local workers they are. What they want and what they can do. And this is perhaps the topic for a separate article. Interviewing Czech programmers was quite fun, but difficult.
And by the way, not all companies are ready to recruit non-Russian-speaking engineers. After all, for this you need to translate workflows into English, change the onboarding procedure, and so on. Complicated. It is difficult, of course, for R&D, because sales or, say, support is usually local. But what is useful can be learned from the fact that the company still decided, and openly stated that “we will have multicultural R&D” .
Advice
Of course, here we enter thin ice and risk again returning to the question with the letter B. But two / three / four offices in different locations from the point of view of any business are much better than one.
Advice
Business is business. And money is money. Foreign offices increase the attractiveness of the company in the global market, which means that they can potentially lead to good investments. It seems that this is not the most interesting topic for developers, but personally I would rather work in a company with a good budget than in a company without investment and budget. This does not necessarily mean that you will ride a Ferarry, but new MacBooks, monitors and modern workplaces do not appear from scratch. Even cookies and coffee are worth something, such is the world.
And another reason comes to my mind for opening an office abroad. The last and most sad.
I can understand the top management, which cheerfully reports upstairs: "We have an office, everything is fine." But in fact there are two salesmen sitting there. Investors are happy, stocks jumped.
Unfortunately, there are such companies, but I will not name them. For us, they are completely useless, and there is no way to give any advice here. Unless to ask again: “Why do you need an office?”
From a pragmatic point of view, opening a new office for employees is always a blessing, because opening is a new position, including quite high ones. And here the most important thing is to be proactive. I would recommend:
It is crucial to find out why the company opens an office abroad. Both for employees of this company, and for potential candidates. Much depends on the answer to this question: will you be sitting in a non-staff, wilting department, or will it be a new, developing office. Will you speak English, or will it be the next Russian-language ghetto. And what are the prospects for the company and yours.
In the next series : country selection. Why the Baltic countries are not suitable, why it is impossible to live in Berlin, and why it is easier to open a fruit shop in London, the European IT capital, than an IT company.
If you are in Prague, visit us at Wrike. I will be happy to tell you why Czech beer is not so tasty. Well, or in St. Petersburg, always happy. Vítejte!
However, what the move looks like from the point of view of the company, the question is almost not covered. But this topic has a lot of interesting things, and not just for big bosses. But budgets, headcounts , metrics, and more are insanely boring for developers. What is it - to open an office abroad, why, how much and how? And, most importantly, how can our IT brother benefit from this?
The article turns out to be unrealistically large, so in this series the answer to the question: “Why?”
For starters, a little background and ideas. Hi, my name is Eugene, for a long time I was a frontend team lead at Wrike, then a manager, and then fuck, bang, and we open an office in Prague, and I'm going to be the director of Wrike Prague. It sounds rosy, but in fact Ecclesiastes was right, a thousand times right.
... because in much wisdom there is much sadness; and whoever multiplies knowledge, multiplies sorrow.
What for?
The motives for personal relocation are usually understandable: try something new, learn a language, financial issues, politics, security, and so on. But why would any company open a development office in another country? After all, it’s expensive, it’s not clear what kind of market there is, and indeed ... There can be several reasons, and each one can benefit.
HR brand
It was believed that many top developers would like to work abroad. This is not always the case, and not always the top ones, and in general, one can run into huge disputes, again returning us to the eternal question of the letter B: "Fell or not Fell . " Nevertheless, there is an outflow, and this is a fact. But to leave for an incomprehensible company, it is not clear with what culture it is unclear which country is scary. This is the whole salt. The opening of a foreign office increases the chance to catch good employees who would like to relocate to another country with minimal discomfort.
Advice
- Often companies make a “buffer period” that you must work for in the company before you can be transferred. We at Wrike do not do this, but we understand that maybe some employers need this time to take a closer look at a person and not translate the wrong one ;
- Opening a new office involves expansion. And the expansion involves the opening of new positions. So here is the most suitable field for bidding and negotiations. This is not true for all companies, but they don’t take money for demand, right?
- One of the most important questions: “What teams are already there, and what are they doing there?”. Often companies only transport people from certain destinations, for example, for a particular product or technology. And it may turn out that it will not be very interesting for you or profile. We discussed for a long time, and decided that it is better to make an office “about everything”, it’s easier to find developers and teams and to avoid reservations on cultural, professional or any other grounds.
Funnel extension
Sometimes it seems that IT, like a black hole, only absorbs and gives nothing away. And more and more new specialists entering the market end up in an endless stream in its bottomless body. Personnel hunger forces companies to search for new territories and drives them, as in the era of great conquests, across the ocean. The decision is not easy, no one knows what kind of local workers they are. What they want and what they can do. And this is perhaps the topic for a separate article. Interviewing Czech programmers was quite fun, but difficult.
And by the way, not all companies are ready to recruit non-Russian-speaking engineers. After all, for this you need to translate workflows into English, change the onboarding procedure, and so on. Complicated. It is difficult, of course, for R&D, because sales or, say, support is usually local. But what is useful can be learned from the fact that the company still decided, and openly stated that “we will have multicultural R&D” .
Advice
- You will have non-Russian speaking colleagues. It’s cool, it broadens one’s horizons, making new friends and more. But, unfortunately, you can’t discuss new memes with your colleague if you don’t know English. So if you go to a company that is ready to transport you - be sure you will be asked about knowledge of the language. But on the other hand, working in IT in 2019 and not knowing English is nonsense, isn't it?
- Be sure to find out in which team you will work after moving. It depends on you whether most of the time you will speak Russian, English or generally be silent. In general, this advice can be applied at all in any interview. Ask where and how you will work. And this, by the way, is a big difference between Russian developers and Europeans.
One of the programmers at the interview asked for a tour of the office. Since we are in Prague, and he is in Paris, we took a webcam and walked “along with it” into the offices. It was very reminiscent of the series “The Big Bang Theory” , when Sheldon was afraid to leave the house, and sent a robot instead.
- Hi guys, this is Jean, he wants to be our front-end
- * guys nod to the laptop *
Risk diversification
Of course, here we enter thin ice and risk again returning to the question with the letter B. But two / three / four offices in different locations from the point of view of any business are much better than one.
Be sure to read the article by Shahin Sorkh about Iran, and how developers live there habr.com/en/company/digital-ecosystems/blog/461019 .
Honestly, reading this is very sad.
Advice
- It is important to understand what the future of the office is? Why did they open it? And it’s worth asking what will happen in a year or two. You know, everyone does not like the classic HR question: “Who do you see yourself in five years?”. But for ourselves for some reason we do not ask him. After all, it depends entirely on what you will do in two / three years.
Investment attractiveness
Business is business. And money is money. Foreign offices increase the attractiveness of the company in the global market, which means that they can potentially lead to good investments. It seems that this is not the most interesting topic for developers, but personally I would rather work in a company with a good budget than in a company without investment and budget. This does not necessarily mean that you will ride a Ferarry, but new MacBooks, monitors and modern workplaces do not appear from scratch. Even cookies and coffee are worth something, such is the world.
And another reason comes to my mind for opening an office abroad. The last and most sad.
For check
I can understand the top management, which cheerfully reports upstairs: "We have an office, everything is fine." But in fact there are two salesmen sitting there. Investors are happy, stocks jumped.
Unfortunately, there are such companies, but I will not name them. For us, they are completely useless, and there is no way to give any advice here. Unless to ask again: “Why do you need an office?”
A friend of mine told me that they opened an office in China with great fanfare. All mailings trumpeted that it would be a major engineering center and in general, glass, concrete, brains and innovations. But for some reason no one saw any pictures from the office. People came from there, yes, but no one could get there. Right Area 51. Rumor has it that they are doing something so disruptive that all competitors are sleeping and see how to snatch secrets from there. But in the end, after applying the Russian ingenuity (to give guests a drink in the bar unconscious), my friend found out that the “think tank” is a barn in the middle of a Chinese rice field.
Expanding the company - expanding ourselves
From a pragmatic point of view, opening a new office for employees is always a blessing, because opening is a new position, including quite high ones. And here the most important thing is to be proactive. I would recommend:
- View around. What are the people around you doing, your boss and your great boss? Maybe the same people will be needed in the new office. And here you are so beautiful;
- Decide where you are interested in developing;
- Having come up with a position for yourself - write for her a plan 30-60-90 and goals. Let it be a draft, you have never done it. But this is better than saying: “I want to be the mistress of the sea”;
- Proactively come to the boss with a plan, goals and other things;
- Profit!
Total
It is crucial to find out why the company opens an office abroad. Both for employees of this company, and for potential candidates. Much depends on the answer to this question: will you be sitting in a non-staff, wilting department, or will it be a new, developing office. Will you speak English, or will it be the next Russian-language ghetto. And what are the prospects for the company and yours.
In the next series : country selection. Why the Baltic countries are not suitable, why it is impossible to live in Berlin, and why it is easier to open a fruit shop in London, the European IT capital, than an IT company.
PS
If you are in Prague, visit us at Wrike. I will be happy to tell you why Czech beer is not so tasty. Well, or in St. Petersburg, always happy. Vítejte!
All Articles