Visit us on ostrovok

A gym, a manicure room, a swing and an ancient apple macintosh - today we walk around the office of one of the most successful travel startups in Russia.

For those who are not at all in the subject: Ostrovok.ru is an online service for booking hotels around the world. Founded in 2011 by Sergey Fage (CEO) and Kirill Makharinsky, attracted more than 1.2 billion rubles of investments, in 2013 won the National Geographic Traveler Awards in the nomination "Best Internet Service".

Office

The office is located near the station. metro station "Krasnopresnenskaya" in BC Loft Center. The company occupies half the floor. Employees consider office as a reason for pride - there really is something to look at. The endless corridor divides the spacious open space into two parts; Evergreens sprawled on the tables / windowsills / cabinets, motivating posters, pictures and photos of employees on the walls.
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The island is perhaps the only company whose employees love to spend time in the corridor. And all because there are swings! Those with a strong vestibular apparatus, can even swing all day on them. Frankly speaking, it’s simply impossible to resist the temptation to sit on them and remember their childhood. We rocked the whole team (in turn, of course).



In addition to the open space in the office, you can find several meetings, a game room, a dining room / kitchen, a relaxation room and even a gym!

Relax room is a room where there are sofas, a bunk bed and a massage chair. Lots of pillows and lightproof blinds. It is always quiet, cool and cozy here. You can read, be alone with them or just sleep. Employees say: “This is how you walk in, and on the second floor Serge sleeps. Well, you lie down quietly on the first floor. "

The gym is an easy way to save staff time and money. You can do at any convenient time: someone starts the morning with a treadmill, someone at lunch wants to push the barbell, and for some people the work day ends with a bike ride even in the middle of winter.



There is a huge amount of screens in the office, where internal information is displayed: analytics and statistics. Everyone sees positive changes or shortcomings in the "live". This screen is in the kitchen, it is a large piece allocated for customer complaints. It does not add an appetite, but according to Fage, it is very motivating:

“We want everyone to see that due to the fact that we didn’t finish something, the client had a bad experience of interaction with us. We want everyone to see that the eye is burning, because then people will want to fix it. ”

Job

Employees have access to the office 24/7 regardless of whether it is weekdays or holidays. Accounting arrives early in the morning, then all the rest are pulled up. The schedule is free, but reasonable - on average, most working days start at 10–11. Night residents also feel great and do not suffer from loneliness - call center operators answer calls around the clock, and the developers ... well, they are developers.



Zhenya Kuryshev (CTO) happily talks about how in five years he managed to try himself in almost everything except accounting and finance, but he still stopped at his beloved business and now works as a technical director. There is a special attitude to programmers in Ostrov: they choose the most active and ambitious and in every possible way help them improve.
“Or sometimes we ask our developers who is the coolest developer on the market and who they would like to work with. And we try to bring these people into the team. ”



Special attention is given to the department of Analytics Ostrovka. The company pays a lot of attention to information, which is analyzed in seconds, transformed into statistics and displayed on the screen. Analysts are just like on the selection: bigdat knee, sql on the shoulder. They are fanatically and devotedly to their work and all the time talking about the love of numbers.

Corporate culture

At the beginning of the article you already had the word “startup”, which should have hinted at the company's culture. No formalities, no fixed schedules, free space for activities and support for any initiatives. About the result.

“It doesn’t matter to me when a person works, it’s important for me that he succeeds, and if he doesn’t succeed, then his soul aches for it. And he went and actively tried to do better. We do not tolerate a relationship: "does not work, so I went." We just don’t want to work with such people. ”

The startup has already grown, the company employs about 150 people, but the culture of openness, goodwill and willingness to help each other for the sake of achieving big goals remained.

Buns

Free schedule. It is not the hours spent sitting at work, but the results.
Free lunches. Each employee is brought in the morning with a personalized lunch box.
Gym in the office. In a healthy body ...
Manicure in the office. Not on a daily basis, of course, but still.
Swing. Strengthens the vestibular apparatus.
Standard IT start-up kit. PS, Xbox, table tennis, ottomans (smoothie not found).

Chips

Corporate. Team quests, paintball, snowboarding and tubing at a ski resort and more.
The ability to communicate personally with the CEO. Sergey (or, as he is called here, Serge) is really ready to communicate with each employee, if there is a need. He knows how to soberly evaluate the genius of an idea, helps to understand the problem and motivates to productive work with personal experience.
Atmosphere. Island - a place for fans of their business. An atmosphere of greatness reigns here - everyone understands that they are working on a large-scale project and really want to make it better every day.
Opportunities for self-development. The one who does not develop dies. Well, not literally, of course. Only those who are willing to work long and hard are delayed in the company. All the necessary conditions are being created for them.
Internal hackathons. Internal hackathons are held once every 3-4 months. Teams create real projects and receive prizes in various nominations. But of course, the best reward is the implementation of the project.
Hello from Silicon Valley. The CEO after all studied in Stanford and got a lot of useful acquaintances. Now successful entrepreneurs come to visit to share experiences and success stories with employees.

With a head in the atmosphere of the company, you can watch a video interview with employees and CEO here .
If you fell in love with ostrovok.ru at first sight and want to work there, go here .