How IT professionals work. Andrei Volosyuk, CTO Digital Society Laboratory at SocialKey Ads

We continue to ask specialists about the mode of work and rest, professional habits, the tools they use, and much more.

It will be interesting to find out what unites them, in what they contradict each other. Perhaps their answers will help to identify some general patterns, useful tips that will help many of us.

Today our guest is Andrei Volosyuk, Technical Director of Digital Society Laboratory , SocialKey Ads project.
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Andrei has an incomplete higher technical education. While studying, I became interested in web development, and then my student hobby turned into a professional activity.


Before DSL on freelancing, he created and maintained websites of online stores, managed to work in Mail.Ru Group, Lamoda and VKontakte.

Interests: outdoor activities, professional and fiction.

What do you do in the company?

As a technical director, I have a lot of responsibilities. Most often I am engaged in development and service architecture, training new employees, defining a development strategy, monitoring key indicators and optimizing development processes. In emergency situations, I put on the costume of the captain of the ship during a storm and seal the resulting holes. As on the ship, a very important role is played by the team.

One word that best describes how you work:

Out!

How many hours a day do you spend on work?

Differently. Sometimes you have to start a working day before the schedule, respectively, and it’s not always time to leave. This is primarily due to the specifics of the position - I control all the technical processes in the company and take full responsibility for the work done. If we talk about the clock, it is 8-15 hours a day. Depends on the load, current tasks, on the need to connect to solving emergency issues.

How many hours do you sleep?

Because of work, home and family affairs, usually 6-8 hours are left for sleep.

How do you have breakfast?

How? Quickly.

If you're talking about food, then the standard set is tea, porridge. I always have breakfast.

What are you doing on the way to / from work?

I read professional and fiction literature, as well as news.

What kind of todo-manager do you use personally?

I chose Any.do. I use mostly for personal purposes, sometimes for work.

What applications and services can't you do without?

Mail, calendar, messengers, development environments.

What kind of task manager / issue tracker / repository do you use in the company?

At work we use Jira and GitLab.

What other tools and software do you use at work?

PhpStorm, IntelliJ IDEA, MySQL Workbench.

Does the company have internal projects?

There is. I can not disclose, unfortunately.

What annoys you most when you work?

I like my job. It is annoying that sometimes it is difficult to find time to thoroughly immerse yourself in a task, you often have to switch.

What professional literature would you recommend?

My top 3 recommendations:

• Deadline , Tom DeMarco;
• “How to feed cats” , J. Hank Rainwater;
• “Perfect Code,” Steve McConnell.

What do you prefer: electronic reading rooms or paper books?

Electronic readers like simplicity and mobility, but I prefer paper books.

What technique and why do you prefer at work and at home?

MacBook. Reasons: POSIX-system (convenience of solving any work tasks), GUI, perfect touchpad and habit.

What do you listen when you work?

Also, that when I do not work. Heavy and folk music. There is no separate music for work.

Which life hack allows you to be more efficient?

Prioritization of tasks and drawing up a list of necessary decisions for the day. Make a list in the morning. Usually after breakfast or on the way to work.

What kind of professional advice for the future can you give yourself?

Always look for ways to develop for yourself and the products that I do. Critically evaluate your work.

What would you recommend to a person trying to go the same way?

Do not stop and do not give up. Into all, and all you get!