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How the company is headed by a general director-programmer - opinions and experience of experts

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It happens that at some point the project developer takes the reins. Someone does this on their own, someone sees a conscious need.

If a company consists of several friends, it is usually quite easy to agree, and the role of the CEO is quite formal. But when the staff expands, the CEO gets more opportunities and challenges. Someone will have to make a choice between management work and software development, someone continues to combine two roles. But one way or another, CEOs, programmers have their own characteristics.
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Perhaps this material will help developers who now or in the future would like to establish their own company. Or maybe it will simply allow a better understanding of the programmer’s CEOs.

We talked with representatives of the IT industry and asked to express their attitude to such leaders, to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of such management.

1. By what signs can you recognize the CEO-programmer? Is there any set of standard qualities inherent in such people?

Actual Tools project manager Alexey Fadeev:


Reliable universal features that distinguish programmers, in my opinion, does not exist. But one thing can be noted: this is attention to detail and a love for the accuracy of formulations and definitions - since the very essence of the programmer’s work is to unambiguously explain to the machine to the smallest details what needs to be done, since the machine does not understand any “different interpretations” and “double interpretations”.

It is also worth mentioning a dislike for long and meaningless personal negotiations: programmers are mostly introverts and do not like long conversations.

Alexey Ailarov - co-founder and CEO of Voximplant, a JavaScript-oriented cloud platform for voice and video telephony:


He knows how to program and he says “CEO” on his business card (smiles).

But seriously, those who know how to program are of interest. Just programming can be learned on monthly courses. As well as “learning” chemistry, physics, biology or any other science.

The most interesting are the directors who have extensive practical experience in the development of software products. Often, such people create a project alone or with a few co-founders, after which they become the head of their own company.

The development experience allows such directors to naturally orient themselves in the world of high technologies; it is much more difficult to confuse them in the technical aspects of business. And the “chuika” developed over the years of development makes it easy to find bugs not only in software, but also in business processes.

Business coach Anna Erokhina:


An engineering mindset, innate or in-depth in technical colleges, makes itself felt even years later in a managerial position. To recognize such a leader from the first words today is quite difficult. However, usually techies speak directly, look into the essence of the process and voice tasks without too many words.

In the process of work, such people usually have around one or two associates, like-minded people who may not be in skills and abilities consistent with the current status of the business, but the very fact that they are like-minded people has a huge impact for many years.

Marat Abasaliyev, CEO of PayOnline (experience programmer and work in the field of information technology - more than 15 years):


Programmers can be divided into two types: introverts and extroverts. The former are less sociable and love working with code and machines more, the latter, due to their communication skills, are ready to expand their responsibilities and “manager” projects. From the special characteristics of programmers, managers, managers can be divided into several points:



This applies to the solution of the company's tasks: in this way errors are eliminated not only in technological, but also in business processes.

Sergey Smirnov, director of Moyki-Online.ru, winner of the National Business Award "Business Success" in the CFA:


I’m sure most programmer-generals will have punctuality, accuracy, and thoroughness. The life of such CEOs also consists of several “programs” that they “wrote” and “optimized”.

The program directors will have rather modest external indicative signs. They will not seek to showcase luxury. But they will love comfortable things, allowing you not to waste time and do your favorite thing.

Senior Consultant of the High Technologies Practice of the Marksman Recruiting Company Anastasia Aulova:


If the company has its own development, then the desire of the CEO-programmer to participate in code optimization and solving technical problems will be obvious. And in a small company, the CEO with a strong programming background can even take on the role of development manager.

And most likely he managed to get into a high managerial position due to good communication skills, leadership skills and ability to think strategically.

Director General of Visiology, Ivan Vakhmyanin, former software engineer:


All managers who have left the technical field - engineering, programming, and so on. - combines the ability to do independently complex things and deeply understand the essence of technology - this is a serious advantage if used correctly. As for the signs, let's say, if the CEO reads Habr regularly, then this is the CEO-engineer (smiles).

Rodion Eroshek, co-founder of POSTER - a company for the automation of cafes, restaurants and shops:


It's simple: attention to detail, analytical mind and introversion. And the fact that a person is an introvert does not mean that he has poor communication skills. He simply draws inner energy from solitude, from his hobbies. But programmers are often associated with development too. For example, I still write code for some parts of the system, it just gives me pleasure.

Nikolay Patskov, Director General, “FreshDoc.ru Document Designer”:


The principal quality of the director, inherited from the programmer, can be considered the pursuit of accuracy: a clear understanding of the costs of each project (this concerns both the economy of income and expenditure and human resources) and the requirement of the same pedantic accuracy from employees. In our company, none of our colleagues know the phrases “well, someday,” “perhaps later,” “volumes are unknown,” and so on.

It helps to soberly assess their capabilities, taking into account the time and available resources. And it is precisely with the requirement of clarity and accuracy that the following important quality is connected: the striving for organizational discipline. A personal example of timing control has a very beneficial effect on staff, you know.

Vladimir Balyberdin, director of the BIK agency, a former engineer and developer:


I can not speak for everyone, I will say for myself:







General Director and Programmer of RCNTEC Denis Neshtun:


You can recognize the signs:


2. To what extent does engineering experience and deep knowledge of technical aspects interfere with the conduct of business (management)?

Actual Tools project manager Alexey Fadeev:


Knowing the technical nuances, at the talks, you can take the point of view of your opponent and give up on some important issues where a leader without technical experience would simply insist on his own.

Alexey Ailarov - co-founder and CEO of Voximplant:


Experience and in-depth knowledge of technical aspects every day expose the temptation to "do everything myself" and "tell the right decision." But in no case should this be done. No matter how cool the CEO is, he cannot replace a team of ten developers.

An experienced developer who has taken over the management of the company has to constantly train in “programming by someone else’s hands”. At the forefront of communication skills, the ability to properly raise questions, control the implementation of tasks and time to notice problems in the process.

Business coach Anna Erokhina:


I don’t remember a manager with a technical education, whom this education would hurt. The engineering mindset, which allows, on the one hand, to analyze, on the other hand, to plan, on the third, to predict the situation in the proposed circumstances, and most importantly, to solve problems based on input data, helps a lot in business.

The only limiting circumstances for the former techie in modern business is often the lack of creativity. This deficiency is associated with deep immersion in details. After all, when a person is deep inside, it is difficult for him, it is extremely difficult to fly over everything and look extensively at the subject matter, go beyond, find some absolutely incredible and new solutions.

The desire of a programmer to go deep into the essence of the issue, to understand to the last comma in each project, to refine every person in the team to perfection can lead to a too narrow view of things. Enthusiasm and enthusiasm inherent in techies in this case can play a cruel joke. Focusing on one favorite side of the business and inattention to the other is a bottleneck for the growth of the company.

Marat Abasaliev, PayOnline CEO:


Going from pure IT to business is a difficult task, comparable to the transition of the CEO of a major retailer to the refining industry. However, this is real, and good examples can be found quite a lot.

The main problem is the desire to intervene in programming tasks. This can be annoying to someone when someone climbs to him with advice, someone cannot say “no” to the ideas of his superiors. You must be able to distance yourself, delegate the task, and trust its decision to employees.

Senior Consultant of the High Technologies Practice of the Marksman Recruiting Company Anastasia Aulova:


Any manager is faced with the difficulty of delegation. For a person with deep technical knowledge, it will be natural to seek to apply them. However, taking on the managerial function, the manager must consciously put the solution to more global tasks for himself.

Delegation is a real skill that only in words can seem simple and effortless. In fact, it is not so easy to effectively distribute responsibility for the fulfillment of tasks and powers.

General Director of Visiology Ivan Vakhmyanin:


It’s not the engineering experience per se that hinders (it’s just helps), but the qualities it has come from — the habit of doing everything with your own hands and the tendency to work with equipment, not with people. In my opinion, the most difficult topic for the CEO-engineer, the CEO-programmer are sales. This requires completely different qualities and experience than for development.

I had to learn a lot and somewhere to go over myself, but still it’s impossible to do everything perfectly. We need to build a team whose members would complement each other.

In this regard, I recommend everyone to read Yitzhak Adizes’s book “The Primary Leader,” where it’s great to make a theory, it helped me a lot in due time.

General Director and Programmer of RCNTEC Denis Neshtun:


Probably the main thing that sometimes interferes (though it helps in most cases) engineering experience is the sales process. A deep knowledge of details and engineering perfectionism, an understanding of what else needs to be done to bring the product to an ideal state - all this prevents from the wishful thinking. Sales of this technique usually contributes.

Rodion Eroshek, co-founder of POSTER:


Sometimes, when you think about the future of the industry, mentally you start working out the mechanics of implementation, you see what solutions are still constrained by the current development of technologies. However, every day it becomes harder to come up with a task that machines cannot cope with.

For example, the word “Go” means a lot to me in the context of the victory of robots over people: the Alpha Go algorithm, which for the first time beat the world champion in the game “go” and the new product Amazon Go, which eliminates the need for cashiers in retail - based on computer vision the system sees which products the visitor has selected and writes off money from the card when it leaves the store.

General Director of “Fly To Rat” Andrei Vershinin:


It hinders only in one aspect: when you have to do something yourself, and you don’t really like to do it, then you unconsciously look for ways not to do it. For example, you need to write some complicated SQL query. You know that it will take a day to debug and optimize it. You don't really like to do this, but you have to do it.

It is necessary for the business that the customer received the report he needs. In the end, you postpone it, finding more important things, when you actually have to sit down and do it.

When you have a leader, you have no opportunity to shirk. When you have an employee to whom you can entrust it, you will entrust him, and you yourself will take up business development. It is clear that this is a simplified example, but the point is this.

Nikolay Patskov, Director General, “FreshDoc.ru Document Designer”:


It is important to understand that the general director-programmer is manufacturability in everything. And often this approach to work does not take into account the human factor. After all, the scripts do not suddenly begin to hurt, the software does not go on maternity leave, the plugins do not lose their motivation. Anything that works perfectly on paper can run into unexpected circumstances in real life.

General Director of the company Oblakoteka Maxim Zakharenko:


If the company works in the field of IT, then IT background is required. I heard that there are IT managers not from IT, but I have never met them myself, and I believe that these possible exceptions rather emphasize the existing rule. And, conversely, IT-shniki almost do not open spas.

Igor Kalganov, the founder of the 33 Elephant company:


There is, of course, the other side of the coin: programmers are often introverts, which practically puts an end to the promotion of a company by the forces of its leader. Therefore, often the general has to fight with himself, interacting with the media, taking part in public events and pitch sessions.

3. And how much does it help in business development?

Actual Tools project manager Alexey Fadeev:


The inherent ability of programmers to think logically, systematically and abstractly makes it possible to better see the development strategy and find new opportunities for it, and the skill of analyzing and debugging programs helps to find and eliminate weaknesses in the company’s structure (inefficient employees, unfavorable counterparties, etc.).

Alexey Ailarov - co-founder and CEO of Voximplant:


The most important thing that gives the experience of programming in business management is peace of mind for technical solutions. They may be right and wrong, but they will definitely be conscious. Programming is a very new area of ​​activity that has become truly mass only in the last twenty years. The ability to easily navigate in this area gives a great competitive advantage. Other things being equal, of course.

Programming, like the “technical mindset,” allows you to approach the process of business development in a certain way. This is often referred to as structural thinking, and many graduates of technical colleges who have become successful businessmen confirm the theory that this is an important component in the process of building a successful business.

Marat Abasaliev, PayOnline CEO:


Programmers have one great common feature - they know how to learn: look for information, get it right, can quickly find the missing knowledge. Self-study is one of the most useful qualities of IT people. The knowledge that is missing for doing business, such a person will quickly find and also quickly learn how to apply it.

Rodion Eroshek, co-founder of POSTER:


It helps not to waste time on false scenarios. For example, the last chat bots fever spawned many AI personal assistants. But if you pay attention to the problems that NLP is facing today (recognition of human speech), it becomes clear that writing personal assistants is now a task for scientists, not for businesses.

CEO programmer can cut off this direction of development before the resources of the company are spent on it.

Sergey Smirnov, director of Moyki-Online.ru:


Technical background and entrepreneurial spirit - the best combination for a top manager. Programming implies a good knowledge of the exact sciences, primarily mathematics. This means that such a general director will be able to make decisions based on logic and numbers, and not emotions, which will be a great blessing for the enterprise - after all, business survives and develops when it makes profit.

General Director of Visiology Ivan Vakhmyanin:


If the business is technological, it helps a lot. It seems to me that some products and technologies cannot be created otherwise. When one person is very deeply immersed in the business (he understands what the client needs and why) and in technology (he understands what and how can be realized), he is more likely to come up with cool breakthrough solutions than a manager with an engineer. Just do not forget these decisions and then verify and develop with the team.

Probably, engineering experience is also useful for non-technological business. At least, I have before my eyes many examples of people with technical education and experience who have achieved success in business. But here it is difficult to judge, for the time being, I am only interested in the technology business.

General Director and Programmer of RCNTEC Denis Neshtun:


Steve Jobs:
When we demonstrated the project to the engineers, they immediately gave 38 reasons why it could not be implemented. And I say: "No, it must be implemented." “Why is this?” They ask. “Because I’m the CEO of the company, I answered, and I believe that this can be done.”
So, the DG programmer knows and does. If, of course, he knows.

Making a programmer from an accountant, from a programmer’s seller, from a programmer’s director is very difficult, but a programmer is forced to turn into anyone, to understand the subject area to solve any problem.

A programmer, like all other programmers, is lazy in a good way and doesn’t like routine, so he constantly encourages his colleagues to look closely at the logic of their actions and get rid of what can be passed on to computers / robots, thus freeing up human time what a person is intended for - for creative activity.

General Director of the company Oblakoteka Maxim Zakharenko:


Developers are able to get out of a variety of situations, which greatly helps to make non-standard decisions.

Vladimir Balyberdin, director of the BIK agency:


Always helps. Today, the sales manager and I talked to the customer-factory. They have a great base integration task. The manager led the entire transaction, negotiations, discussion, marketing, estimates. As soon as it came to technical issues, I entered into a conversation. This helps to show the client the competence of the agency. If the director understands the question, he can teach the staff how to perform the task and check the result.

General Director of “Fly To Rat” Andrei Vershinin:


He doesn't just help. He is the basis of building a business. First, it is a brain sharpened by algorithms. Any business is the alignment of algorithms: be it finance, marketing, employee relations. In general, these are all processes, and the work of a programmer is the automation of processes.

Equally important is the development of attention to detail, thoroughness. When you write a code, you cannot forget a bracket or a comma. And eight hours a day for many years, you carefully and carefully write line by line, come across errors, correct them, analyze their occurrence. The work of an entrepreneur is all the same and most importantly - attention to detail. Thinking through everything in advance, collecting any information, rumors, gossip, analysis of trifles is the work of a successful entrepreneur, and this is what is cultivated by development.

The second absolute advantage - the developers do not hang noodles on the ears. They show greater respect for the person who owns the question and understands why an in-memory database is needed in certain cases, what it means to “subnet” or why it bans an IP address. It is not clear to me how one can be a foreman at a construction site, not knowing how quickly concrete rises.

In many issues, the developer’s experience helps to make an architectural decision much faster in terms of the complexity of its implementation and support in the future.

4. Will the approaches of the CEO-programmer differ in the case of managing a small startup or a large and mature company?

Actual Tools project manager Alexey Fadeev:


In the case of a small startup, the programmer’s general director can afford (and therefore most likely will) control all the details and nuances of the company's development - production, sales, marketing, etc., because, first, his system thinking works and a systematic approach, and secondly, the mentioned attention to detail and the love of accuracy work.

In a large and mature company, the general director can only afford to communicate with direct deputies on specific issues, since most processes are already established in it and the need to delve into small details rarely arises.

Alexey Ailarov - co-founder and CEO of Voximplant:


In the case of a startup, the general director-programmer will be able to help his colleagues, participate in making technical decisions, and even “insure” the team against serious mistakes.

In the case of large business, he will not be able to do it. But he will be able to use his experience for risk analysis and long-term planning, which in our rapidly changing world are key elements of a business strategy for large companies.

Marat Abasaliev, PayOnline CEO:


The general director of a programmer has a desire to study, solve new problems, search for non-standard approaches. At the startup stage, there are a lot of such tasks, and he is happy to deal with them. As soon as a startup grows into a large company, there is no need for non-standard solutions: all processes are implemented, it remains to write the rules and establish procedures.

It becomes boring, and such a person begins to look for new projects and "challenges", new interests appear. There may be exceptions, but if in a duet of professions a “general director-programmer”, the programmer remains primary, he will most likely transfer the routine management to the executive director, while he himself will be engaged in new projects.

Sergey Smirnov, director of Moyki-Online.ru:


Approaches in these different cases must be different. In a startup, there is no possibility to share responsibilities and have to deal with very different functionality. A startup must grow, which means there are a lot of changes in business processes. They are all in charge of the general director. In a large company, business processes are already built, and it is important to hire people who support them.

General Director of Visiology Ivan Vakhmyanin:


I think that the larger the company, the smaller the role played by the engineering background.

General Director and Programmer of RCNTEC Denis Neshtun:


No, they do not differ at all. The DG programmer is well acquainted with the concept of the performance ceiling of a single computational node and instinctively knows how to parallelize processes and delegate responsibility in all areas of activity.

The DG programmer, unlike the hypothetical DG sysadmin, tends not to engage in micromanagement, but to “program” processes in people and “test” the result from time to time.

General Director of “Fly To Rat” Andrei Vershinin:


In a startup, you work in a hard agile relationship with the market, changing every two weeks the product and its concept, adapting to any new customer and rejoicing in every sale. A startup is simple, fun, perky.

A big company is a process, a policy, a bureaucracy, a relationship of people, and most importantly a huge responsibility. And to reorganize into a similar channel of control is a very difficult task.

5. What qualities should a specialist have in order to be interviewed by a programmer-general director?

Actual Tools project manager Alexey Fadeev:


The specialist must have the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for the performance of his immediate work: for the cleaning woman, the head of the sales department, the project manager, the evaluation criteria will, of course, differ.

For candidates for engineering and management positions, system and analytical thinking, the ability to set and solve assigned tasks, initiative and responsibility are welcomed.

Alexey Ailarov - co-founder and CEO of Voximplant:


I suppose it is exactly the same as what is needed for an interview with a technical programmer or a leading programmer-programmer.

Of course, the CEO with programming experience is much easier to assess the competence of the employees hired. But this can be an obstacle to growth, when our own fifteen-year experience greatly underestimates the candidates' knowledge and skills and delays hiring for many months, because the majority “do not know how to do anything”.

Rodion Eroshek, co-founder of POSTER:


At interviews, we select people who are like us, with whom we have intersections in life values, we must have a similar cultural level. I don’t think that it is the interviewer / programmer who will highlight something here.

I communicate with business executives without a technical background, and it turns out that during interviews we focus on almost the same things.

Business coach Anna Erokhina:


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Qualities that are traditionally valued by programmers are structuredness, the ability to think logically and creatively, to analyze. At the same time, it is assumed that a person in the position of general director thinks globally (while being well aware of this moment), and this is what distinguishes him from other employees and managers and allows him to successfully solve business development and management issues.

It can be assumed that a systematic approach and the propensity to consider any workflow in conjunction with the general business goals will make an indelible impression on the head of the company.

General Director of Visiology Ivan Vakhmyanin:


I do not think that we need any special qualities for interviewing such a general director.

General Director and Programmer of RCNTEC Denis Neshtun:


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So in the interview: in addition to the technical basics, I ask about the theory. If a person does not know the theory or neglects it, this is the neglect of my principles. Even if it will not be applied in practice, the information base itself will allow it to study other products. It matters to me what a person values. If a person believes that it is necessary to develop in order to earn more - this is our person. If a person wants to receive a lot, but often says “I do not know this” or “they only ask this in the university,” I will not take him to myself.

6. How well will the CEO or CEO be able to combine the position of technical director or chief engineer / architect?

Actual Tools project manager Alexey Fadeev:


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Business coach Anna Erokhina:


There are many examples on the market when the head of the company is in fact also the main technical part. The most successful experience proves that this leads to the growth of the company in cases where there is a good deputy for the general administrative part and a good performer for the technical part. With such a scheme of work, it turns out that the manager generates ideas and gives a general plan of work both in the commercial part and in the technical part, and the company's employees are already implementing these ideas.

If behind the back of the manager there is no good associate in the commercial or engineering part, the concentration in both hands of both functions will lead to a narrow place for the company to grow.

Marat Abasaliev, PayOnline CEO:


At the startup stage - quite possibly, at the company stage - it is unlikely. If we take a programmer who is hired for a management position, then in any case his main task will be more management than involvement in technological processes: he may be responsible for R & D, for strategy. And the more a company becomes, the more time it takes strategic management.

Sergey Smirnov, director of Moyki-Online.ru:


Any combination implies an exception. This will be either an exceptional person who can successfully combine the two positions. Or there will be an exceptional situation when this should be done. For example, in a startup. And in a sustainable business, it's better not to take risks.

General Director of Visiology Ivan Vakhmyanin:


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It can not. And if someone succeeds, he is a bad CEO. More precisely, it is the main stopper for the development of his company.

A CEO is a person who manages independent top managers. This is a person who should spend half of his time thinking about the company's future and the company's place on the market, setting development vectors, and the second - analyzing what is happening in the company and the company's influence on the market.

General Director of the company Oblakoteka Maxim Zakharenko:


In a startup, there must be two roles (two different people): “business” and “techie”. This is the most balanced tandem. "Techie" controls the quality of the product and does not allow "trade in air", and "businessman" does not allow deepening in the endless process of production and functional improvements.

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For a programmer, working in such a company is very, very cool. When you speak with the CEO in the same language, you discuss the latest news of React Native and roll out a new build for styling together. Of course, with the growth of the company, the CEO will increasingly deviate from the development and engage in strategic planning and business communications. In the meantime, I see only advantages in such a background. Fun fact: in Voximplant, the entire manual is programmers. CEO, CTO, CFO and even Marketing Director. A unique place to work.

Business coach Anna Erokhina:


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In general, for a programmer who loves his job, who gets a buzz from every function he has written, who wants to go forward and develop, the best choice is the boss in the same or at least very related field of activity.

General Director of Visiology Ivan Vakhmyanin:


Of course, it is always more comfortable to work with a boss who is “on topic”. With him you can clearly build work and understand each other perfectly. It's comfortable.

In addition, there are always questions that can be fascinatingly discussed outside the workflow, but also associated with programming, new trends. This significantly distinguishes the work of a programmer in IT companies from work in non-IT companies, where people work around, not only who do not understand anything about the complexities or beauty of the work done by the programmer, but even simply do not understand, “that this is a strange does an introvertive dude even do in our office? ”

Therefore, I personally appreciate the work with the programmer general director very highly.

General Director and Programmer of RCNTEC Denis Neshtun:


Pros:









Minuses:





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Programmers, as a rule, people are always accurate in everything and are well-versed in the work of each division of their company. They understand the mechanism, and in a conversation with such a general director there will be no misunderstanding when an employee conveys information concerning his area of ​​responsibility.

The experience gained can only be called a plus, not a minus, you always keep the work of your employees in control and you know how and what should work. Moreover, you send them and, undoubtedly, you get experience from them.

A federal-level project or a small startup is a project that needs to be worked on equally hard. The main thing is to grow to the federal level, but to preserve the atmosphere of a startup in your company.

Employees coming to companies where a manager has experience in IT feel more confident even in a startup. IT experience is becoming a guarantee of quality today.

But the requirements for visiting people are different, they not only have to have high professional qualities, but also, most often, fit in other categories: someone has a love of traveling, somewhere - game products. In companies where management is a programmer, there is a team ideology that unites employees into a team, and not just people who come to the office.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/317170/

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