School of interface development in Yandex: personal experience and a new set

Last year I was one of those who entered the Yandex Interface Development School and finished it, and today I want to tell you about how I saw the learning process in SRI, how it happens and what it gives.

Honestly, the reason for the post was the second set of the Yandex Interface Designers School, which is underway now. This year, Schools will be held not only in Moscow , but also in Yekaterinburg . The course programs are slightly different, but everywhere there are both theoretical and practical classes. They will be led by leading Yandex frontend developers who work on Search, Mail, Maps, Market and other interfaces.

I hope that my story will inspire someone to go to school, or at least later watch the lecture videos when they are published (see the video of the last course here ).
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I came to Moscow from the south of Russia six years ago to study. Entered the Moscow Aviation Institute, successfully completed it, managed to work in several offices as a developer, and now I work in Yandex. But I never set myself the goal to go to Yandex - it seemed that I would not reach it, so I never even went there for interviews.

I will tell you how I can - with quotes from the diary / mail / githab for appropriate dates, a lot of links, and sometimes emoticons, because for a long time on the Internet I used to convey emotions in the text.

Until last summer, I was aware of Yandex events and programs not so much. As such, I always disliked conferences, but sometimes I watched broadcasts. Several of my classmates studied at the School of Data Analysis, but I was not attracted to algorithms, matan, and data structures, although I was able to understand and use them. Often, after discussing the introductory statements in the ShAD, I felt uneasy - I hardly wanted to do this .

When the link to the interface development school application form appeared somewhere, I worked as a javist and persistently combed the frontend of the application we are developing. "Why not learn the wits from the professionals?" - I thought then. Having looked at the questionnaire, I decided that it can be simply filled in as a regular registration form for an IT party, and just come to Yandex and listen to lectures. But then I saw the tasks: “Oh, I have to think about it. I did not expect that there will be more tasks ... So ... Save the form → Read it later → Close tab. Then".

Introductory

Hot August 2012. I was on vacation at home, the weather wasn’t set, a slow break on ASCII characters with autocomplex and navigation was taking place, and I decided to work on the introductory task - for fun. A couple of mornings and evenings and in the end everything went for everything about everything in about one week. I did tasks for myself and didn’t try too hard - I didn’t hope to get through and thought that there would be someone who could do them better.

“I am doing a questionnaire in Yandex school. Although her something dramatically simplified, removed all the technical tasks. I hope I’m sending this week. ” (August, 26th)

On August 23, technical tasks were removed from the questionnaire.

Well, okay. I had copies of the questions left in the completed form, but the task really became simpler, and therefore I decided to score on the fifth task about scripting languages - I really didn’t like it.

On the other hand, it seemed to me unfair. It turns out that anyone who arrives on the questionnaire after this update, obviously left behind all those who attended to fill it out earlier. I think this is wrong and I hope that Yandex will never do this again.

There is nothing to tell about tasks - they seem to be simple. You can evaluate the result yourself, it is public and has not changed a bit since then - anton-rudeshko.imtqy.com/shri

Judging by the history in the githaba , I sent the completed questionnaire on August twenty-eighth.

First stage

“The school of Yandex has begun. If you didn’t say, I got there after all =) We were fed pizza, cool lectures, you can drink coffee and cookies free then =) We’ll be fat. I like it, I already dream of working in Yandex after the diploma =) No matter how I jinx it =) But I’m trying to keep up everywhere. ” (23 September)

On September 5, I received a stamped message saying that they were ready to take me. Good news! I was not ready to rush into battle, as I hadn’t originally planned what I’d go through, and, frankly, I forgot that I sent a questionnaire. Thinking, a few days later confirmed his participation. There is nothing to lose, I decided - somehow he will write himself a diploma.

The first lesson was on Saturday, the fifteenth of September. In Yandex, I did not know anyone, but the world turned out to be very small, and I immediately saw two friends from the institute and the hostel. Suddenly. There were generally a lot of people from the MAI, which seemed to me an interesting trend. Misha mishanga Troshev and Seryozha veged Berezhnoy told common things , we drank tea, coffee, ate pizza with cheese and cookies, played the game "tell about yourself and get an SRI t-shirt."

Then the teachers were divided and gave us a tour around the office. He made a very positive impression on me, but since then I have never been far beyond the workplace and I still know him not so good. Laziness, she is.

The first stage of the School, where you just had to attend lectures, lasted a month - from September 15 to October 15. The atmosphere in the classroom was kind and cheerful. Much of what was said was done by the majority of students, but the lectures, it seemed to me, leveled and systematized our knowledge. BEM caused the most misunderstanding.

It was always possible to ask a million stupid questions, laugh, correct, supplement, discuss and holivarit. From us it turned out a big family. We enjoyed our meetings and the evening atmosphere. You could optionally request a review of introductory assignments. I tried to listen to all the comments, and the leaders gave us time, explaining what, how, why, why. We argued and stayed late. Some lecturers gave homework, but his performance, although welcomed, was optional. Unfortunately, checks were delayed and getting feedback on what was done was quite problematic. I hope that this will be fixed in future schools.

Exam

“Last week I had been working on Yandex exam. It turned out like something cool, today I will go to the defense in the evening, I wonder what will happen. Bugs still dofigischa. (17 October)

The first stage in the SRI ends with an exam. It was necessary to “ create the interactive interface of the SRI lecture program ” in accordance with the requirements and functionality. The task that was given out two weeks before the exam almost no one had time to do “perfect” and finished at the last moment before and even after the deadline. And in parallel, I took several courses on the Curser and “wrote a diploma” as it should be, so the time was back to back. The first week I was accumulating and writing down ideas, and the second code, and even the review code of others, was the same. So far, this is my longest streak of commits in the public repository. As with the introductory, the result can be fully seen on the githaba - anton-rudeshko.imtqy.com/shri-2

And here is a collection of all who donated: github.com/yandex-shri/exam

The defense of the exams done lasted a week. Everyone was scheduled to meet at a convenient time, they were asked about the written code, practices, style, why and how something was done. At the end of the meeting, Weged said that my page was evaluated first and therefore the level of requirements for the rest has increased dramatically. I do not even know if this is good or bad =)

Second phase

“They took me, the curator will be Misha Troshev, search, cool, as I wanted!” (October 30)

I successfully passed the exam and got an internship. This meant 10 hours of Yandex per week during November and December. The leaders conducted separate interviews with us in order to understand who wanted to go to whom or who of them wanted to take to whom. I was most attracted by the search. We met and talked a lot with Misha, who leads a group of search interfaces, and in the end I came to him.

Then I worked in the morning and almost did not come across late birds. But a great friendly team gathered here, all such different snowflakes =) Now we regularly arrange meetings, share experiences, watch films and conference recordings together, make reports, look for optimal solutions.

Lectures continued on Saturdays, and we often stayed there. For all the time of training, I skipped only one optional lecture Puzankova on XSL, she was knocked out of my schedule.

“I went on an internship at Yandex, got a poppy, I feel a terrible bathert from him. So far it is tight, but my manager is very good. Inside, everything is very well arranged - taking care of colleagues. Intranet is valid, but I cannot disclose it =) ”(November 11)

On the first working day, a laptop is issued, which you can choose yourself. I took a macbook. Previously, I did not deal with Apple computers, and its development was not easy for me. My task for the period of practice was to identify problems in the current development and testing process and eliminate them using automation and unit tests for various system components.

At that time, I even got to an internal quarterly interface conference called FIVE. He took time off on the main job and spent the whole day with his colleagues in Yandex, with whom we listened to the reports and talked until the evening.

“I went on Friday to Yandex on, actually, a five-fold interface. This is such an internal get-together, where everyone tells what they want. In general, he came again to look at the people, and to feel the atmosphere. Good people work there, interesting, with a rich inner world =) "

The second stage was very difficult for me, and I was constantly nervous because I did not have time to go anywhere. Before lunch, I worked at Yandex, after lunch - at the main job, in the evenings and on Sundays - I wrote a diploma. But it all ended well. The main thing is not to be afraid of taking on tasks, how to solve which you do not know, only this way you can grow.

End of school

"Here is the last lecture in SRI ... End, I will miss these people and our meetings." (December 22)

After the internship ended, I was offered a vacancy of a junior interface developer. I agreed. He completed a diploma, graduated from all institute and work affairs and from February began working at Yandex.

Now, as I said at the beginning, I am developing a search results page. We have a large distributed team, good managers and processes. It is a lot of tasks, they from different areas, difficult and interesting. We all do the most different things - from the layout for IE7, to Continuous Integration and cross-team cat review. There is not enough time to have time for everything that you want. In Yandex, the same adequate IT atmosphere that I was looking for.

Now Yandex opens the second School of interface development. You can fill in the questionnaire and make an introductory task to it until 23:59 on August 19. Classes will be held not only in Moscow, but also in Yekaterinburg.

In addition, Yandex puts all materials in the public domain. So you can still watch the lectures and do your homework.