How does it feel to work in a customer's office?
In service companies there are projects on which IT specialists work not in their own office, but in the customer’s territory. This is called working onsite - on the client side. As a rule, such an approach requires large-scale projects, where it is important that team members can personally communicate with each other, and the customer has a continuous dialogue with business analysts, developers and testers to avoid misunderstandings.
Employees of Moscow Eram with experience on the client side told what it is like to break away from the habitable office and conquer new heights.
Anton, development engineer:
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I came to EPAM in 2010, and my first project was at the client’s office. Since then, I have been constantly working at the customer and I believe that the company is primarily useful as an onsight developer.
Such work requires constant personal communication with several teams - those who represent the customer, and with colleagues from EPAM. Interacting with people is harder than solving the most complex technical problems. At first, working onsite is comfortable only for lovers of live communication, but over time everyone’s communicative skills develop. Based on my experience, I can say: it is always more efficient to spend ten minutes and discuss the problem personally than to write two or three dozen letters.
The first time will have to live, as they say, according to foreign orders. To the person who came from the side, the customer’s processes may seem complicated, confusing and illogical. It is possible and necessary to fight this, but not at first.
After working onsight, you will see what caused these intricate processes, and make sure that it is not as easy to disentangle them as it seems from the outside. Perhaps you will understand how and what can be improved in the processes on the customer side, without breaking them all together. On the current project, for example, I developed an automated testing utility that speeds up testing, allows you to keep regression under control, and now it is used, it has taken root.
Ivan, the lead of the testing team:
The main advantage of working at the customer is constant interaction with him. We know what he wants, and he, in turn, always knows what we are doing and at what stage. When IT specialists work from their office, away from the customer, the risk of being misunderstood increases. You can work remotely, implement another release and suddenly find that you approach the implementation a little differently than the customer. On onsite projects, the chances of fatal misunderstanding tend to zero.
Andrew, business analyst:
Working on the client side is a big responsibility. For the customer, we, the onsite workers, are EPAM. We are judged on the company as a whole, we are asked any questions. I am a representative of EPAM and cannot leave them unanswered, even if they do not concern me as a business analyst. But one should not be afraid that terrible people are sitting on the customer side and asking difficult questions - there is nothing extreme in such work.
In the office of the customer, his hidden expectations are revealed - things are so obvious to him that it never occurred to him to say such a thing. Say, the bank changed security policies, and now all internal traffic needs to be encrypted. Sitting in the EPAM office, the team may not know about it until the release itself. What is fraught with, we all understand. For those who work onsite, it is impossible to miss important news. The employees of EPAM have mail on the client's domain, where the internal corporate mailing arrives; news is discussed in the office. Another plus: the customer sees us, understands what we are doing, can at any time ask us a question and get an answer to it.
Difficulties in such work rather household. Sometimes the client’s security policy does not allow access from the office computer to EPAM mail, Sharepoint, our GitHub. Internet access may be limited, and then you have to use Yota-modems - they give us to EPAM. We can not always personally participate in the internal events of the EPAM, classes in English - only if you connect online. But I still do not tear myself away from the company and, for example, conduct interviews - this can be done remotely.
Natalia, business analyst:
Work onsight does not always mean competition. I was lucky to spend five years in a place where employees of different companies were one cohesive team.
Being in the office of the customer, you need to make acquaintances, get used to the new rules; to figure out who and how can affect your work and project, and, no matter how ridiculous, test what you can eat in the new dining room. My life hacking - quickly find a person who is close to you in spirit, is related to the project and knows how the processes in the company are arranged. It is important that his sense of humor be similar to yours: jokes help build bridges and maintain good relationships. Such a person will acquaint you with colleagues, share information, warn you about the pitfalls of a decision in the project ... And about dangerous dishes in the local canteen.
There are unconditional advantages in onsite work: it is easier to understand the needs of future users by being close to them. Often, the development orders one, controls the other, and the third uses the product. This third one can be a key figure for us, and most often we need to look for it in the office of the customer.
Going to a client’s office isn’t worth it. Even a high-class specialist, if he is incontinent or rude, can harm the project, ruin the relationship between the customer and the contractor. Sooner or later, such a person will be replaced. The one who will replace him will have to work with negative customer experience and re-gain his confidence.
Sergey, development engineer:
Working in an EPAM office is similar to an experiment in a laboratory where all the conditions are created for research. We have a flexible schedule, no dress code, here you are a kicker and table tennis. Computers are powerful enough, good infrastructure for development (server, network). Sit yourself and develop, no one pulls you. Work at the customer is akin to leaving the sterile laboratory in a large and much more complex world. Here you need to work on client processes, and sometimes actively participate in their improvement, to understand not only their specialization, to solve various problems. There you can see how the client’s business lives, how it develops, what limitations one has to face when implementing new opportunities day after day.
Work onsayt gives many opportunities for development. So, I came to the project as a developer, knew how to manage a small team of programmers, looked a little toward testing and analytics, planned small iterations in a limited time interval. In the client's office, I happened to see a lot and learn a lot; I see that very grown. Now I help build processes, organize the work of all analysts, developers and testers of our application family, in some places help our support team, interact with business customers from our and other departments and contractors.
I often deal with contractors, colleagues from other departments, line managers and top managers. Do you know what I understand from this? That we are all humans. Top managers are serious, nervous, demanding, but also people. Sometimes they come to us to talk about the project, to know our opinion. Contractors are people too, and sometimes they also need to go towards, and not take the position "You promised - do now as you like." Everyone can be wrong, everyone has problems, and we all can understand each other - you just have to want.
Employees of Moscow Eram with experience on the client side told what it is like to break away from the habitable office and conquer new heights.
Anton, development engineer:
')
I came to EPAM in 2010, and my first project was at the client’s office. Since then, I have been constantly working at the customer and I believe that the company is primarily useful as an onsight developer.
Such work requires constant personal communication with several teams - those who represent the customer, and with colleagues from EPAM. Interacting with people is harder than solving the most complex technical problems. At first, working onsite is comfortable only for lovers of live communication, but over time everyone’s communicative skills develop. Based on my experience, I can say: it is always more efficient to spend ten minutes and discuss the problem personally than to write two or three dozen letters.
The first time will have to live, as they say, according to foreign orders. To the person who came from the side, the customer’s processes may seem complicated, confusing and illogical. It is possible and necessary to fight this, but not at first.
After working onsight, you will see what caused these intricate processes, and make sure that it is not as easy to disentangle them as it seems from the outside. Perhaps you will understand how and what can be improved in the processes on the customer side, without breaking them all together. On the current project, for example, I developed an automated testing utility that speeds up testing, allows you to keep regression under control, and now it is used, it has taken root.
Ivan, the lead of the testing team:
The main advantage of working at the customer is constant interaction with him. We know what he wants, and he, in turn, always knows what we are doing and at what stage. When IT specialists work from their office, away from the customer, the risk of being misunderstood increases. You can work remotely, implement another release and suddenly find that you approach the implementation a little differently than the customer. On onsite projects, the chances of fatal misunderstanding tend to zero.
Andrew, business analyst:
Working on the client side is a big responsibility. For the customer, we, the onsite workers, are EPAM. We are judged on the company as a whole, we are asked any questions. I am a representative of EPAM and cannot leave them unanswered, even if they do not concern me as a business analyst. But one should not be afraid that terrible people are sitting on the customer side and asking difficult questions - there is nothing extreme in such work.
In the office of the customer, his hidden expectations are revealed - things are so obvious to him that it never occurred to him to say such a thing. Say, the bank changed security policies, and now all internal traffic needs to be encrypted. Sitting in the EPAM office, the team may not know about it until the release itself. What is fraught with, we all understand. For those who work onsite, it is impossible to miss important news. The employees of EPAM have mail on the client's domain, where the internal corporate mailing arrives; news is discussed in the office. Another plus: the customer sees us, understands what we are doing, can at any time ask us a question and get an answer to it.
Difficulties in such work rather household. Sometimes the client’s security policy does not allow access from the office computer to EPAM mail, Sharepoint, our GitHub. Internet access may be limited, and then you have to use Yota-modems - they give us to EPAM. We can not always personally participate in the internal events of the EPAM, classes in English - only if you connect online. But I still do not tear myself away from the company and, for example, conduct interviews - this can be done remotely.
Natalia, business analyst:
Work onsight does not always mean competition. I was lucky to spend five years in a place where employees of different companies were one cohesive team.
Being in the office of the customer, you need to make acquaintances, get used to the new rules; to figure out who and how can affect your work and project, and, no matter how ridiculous, test what you can eat in the new dining room. My life hacking - quickly find a person who is close to you in spirit, is related to the project and knows how the processes in the company are arranged. It is important that his sense of humor be similar to yours: jokes help build bridges and maintain good relationships. Such a person will acquaint you with colleagues, share information, warn you about the pitfalls of a decision in the project ... And about dangerous dishes in the local canteen.
There are unconditional advantages in onsite work: it is easier to understand the needs of future users by being close to them. Often, the development orders one, controls the other, and the third uses the product. This third one can be a key figure for us, and most often we need to look for it in the office of the customer.
Going to a client’s office isn’t worth it. Even a high-class specialist, if he is incontinent or rude, can harm the project, ruin the relationship between the customer and the contractor. Sooner or later, such a person will be replaced. The one who will replace him will have to work with negative customer experience and re-gain his confidence.
Sergey, development engineer:
Working in an EPAM office is similar to an experiment in a laboratory where all the conditions are created for research. We have a flexible schedule, no dress code, here you are a kicker and table tennis. Computers are powerful enough, good infrastructure for development (server, network). Sit yourself and develop, no one pulls you. Work at the customer is akin to leaving the sterile laboratory in a large and much more complex world. Here you need to work on client processes, and sometimes actively participate in their improvement, to understand not only their specialization, to solve various problems. There you can see how the client’s business lives, how it develops, what limitations one has to face when implementing new opportunities day after day.
Work onsayt gives many opportunities for development. So, I came to the project as a developer, knew how to manage a small team of programmers, looked a little toward testing and analytics, planned small iterations in a limited time interval. In the client's office, I happened to see a lot and learn a lot; I see that very grown. Now I help build processes, organize the work of all analysts, developers and testers of our application family, in some places help our support team, interact with business customers from our and other departments and contractors.
I often deal with contractors, colleagues from other departments, line managers and top managers. Do you know what I understand from this? That we are all humans. Top managers are serious, nervous, demanding, but also people. Sometimes they come to us to talk about the project, to know our opinion. Contractors are people too, and sometimes they also need to go towards, and not take the position "You promised - do now as you like." Everyone can be wrong, everyone has problems, and we all can understand each other - you just have to want.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/339850/
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