Moving to Armenia
The first time the proposal came from Armenia at the end of August or in September 2018. At the time, I was looking for work, but the offer was not impressive. On the website of the HR-agency there was no information about the country, but the company (Vineti) was already interested. Later, the key role was played by the site , where Armenia was described very well and in detail.
In January-February of 2019, I had a clear desire to dump either to a remote place outside the Russian market or to relocate. I wrote to all recruiters who recently offered me something. In fact, I almost did not care where to go. In any rather interesting place. The Russian economy and the current course of power do not give me confidence in the future. It seems to me that business also feels it, and even many good companies act according to the strategy “just to snatch it now”, and this contradicts the game for a long time and does not lay down investments for the future. After all, when the focus is on the future, there are really interesting engineering tasks, and not an engineering routine. Such a feeling I had on the experience. Maybe I just had no luck. As a result, it was decided that we should try to blame, and the probability of getting something else will be higher. Now I see that my company has a focus on the future, and this is felt in the business behavior model.
It is worth saying that everything went very quickly. From the time of my message to the recruiter to the offer about three weeks have passed. In parallel, they wrote to me from a Canadian company. And while they were trying to accelerate, I already had an offer. And this is nice, because often the process goes on for a long time, as if everyone has an airbag for several months and a desire to spend it.
Still interested in what the company is doing. Vineti develops software that helps to quickly deliver personalized drugs for cancer and a number of other serious diseases. It is really important for me what product I am doing, what I bring to the world. If you help people get cancer treatment, it's nice to know. With this thought it is more pleasant to go to work, it is easier to experience some negative moments, which in any case will be.
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The company has an interesting interview structure in three stages.
The first stage is a technical interview, which takes place in the form of pair programming in a remote format. Together with one of the Vineti developers you are working on a task. This is not just an interview technique divorced from the company's reality; inside pair programming takes a significant part of the time. So already at the first stage you are in a sense getting to know how, and how you will be inside.
The second stage is something like a pair design. There is a task, and you need to design a data model. You are given business requirements and you are designing a data model. Then they give new business requirements, and you need to develop the model so that it supports them. But if the first stage is the simulation of the relations engineer-engineer, then the second about the simulation of the relations engineer-customer. And you pass it all with those with whom in the future and have to work.
The third stage is the cultural fit. There are about seven people sitting in front of you, and you simply communicate on various topics that may not directly concern work in order to understand whether you will live together as people. Cultural fit is not some hard-won questions. Later I saw several more similar interviews from the company, they were 70% different from mine.
All interviews were in English. This is the main working language: all meetings, rallies and correspondence occur in English. The rest is roughly equally used Russian and Armenian - depending on the mutual convenience of the interlocutors. In Yerevan itself, 95% of people speak at least one language - Russian or English.
Allocated a week before the move, and by and large on the fact that to collect his thoughts. He also moved a week before starting work. This week was to realize where I was, where to buy, and so on. Well, close all bureaucratic moments.
The HR team helped me a lot with finding housing. While you are looking, the company provides housing for a month, which is enough to find an apartment to your taste.
In terms of apartments - a great choice. Against the background of the salaries of programmers, finding something interesting here can be even easier than in Moscow. I had a plan - to pay as much, but to live in much better conditions. It is rarely possible to find an apartment here, which will be more expensive than $ 600 per month, if we consider no more than a three-room apartment in the center. Here, more often interesting layouts. For example, in Moscow, I have never seen in the price tag that I can afford, two-story apartments.
It is easy to find something in the city center, within walking distance from work. In Moscow, finding an apartment near work is quite expensive. Here is what you can afford. Especially, for the salary of a programmer, which may be slightly lower than in Moscow, but because of the general cheapness, you will still have more.
Everything is relatively quick and easy.
The process depends on the company, not the country. In Vineti formalized the process of onboarding. You come, and immediately expectation sync is given: what needs to be mastered in the first month, what goals to achieve in the first three. If you do not intuitively understand what to do, then you can always look at these goals and consciously approach work. Somewhere after a month and a half, I completely forgot about this expectation sync, I just did what I felt was due, and nevertheless acted in accordance with it. Expectation sync does not go against what you will do in the company, it is quite adequate. Even if you do not know about him, then 80% will execute on the machine.
In terms of technical setup, too, everything is clearly built. There are instructions on how to set up your machine so that all the necessary services work. In principle, in past works with this did not come across. Often in the companies onboarding lay in the fact that the immediate supervisor, a colleague on the team, or how it will develop, says what and how. The process has never been well formalized, and here it is really well done. This is one of those moments when I say that business inspires confidence.
In January-February of 2019, I had a clear desire to dump either to a remote place outside the Russian market or to relocate. I wrote to all recruiters who recently offered me something. In fact, I almost did not care where to go. In any rather interesting place. The Russian economy and the current course of power do not give me confidence in the future. It seems to me that business also feels it, and even many good companies act according to the strategy “just to snatch it now”, and this contradicts the game for a long time and does not lay down investments for the future. After all, when the focus is on the future, there are really interesting engineering tasks, and not an engineering routine. Such a feeling I had on the experience. Maybe I just had no luck. As a result, it was decided that we should try to blame, and the probability of getting something else will be higher. Now I see that my company has a focus on the future, and this is felt in the business behavior model.
It is worth saying that everything went very quickly. From the time of my message to the recruiter to the offer about three weeks have passed. In parallel, they wrote to me from a Canadian company. And while they were trying to accelerate, I already had an offer. And this is nice, because often the process goes on for a long time, as if everyone has an airbag for several months and a desire to spend it.
Still interested in what the company is doing. Vineti develops software that helps to quickly deliver personalized drugs for cancer and a number of other serious diseases. It is really important for me what product I am doing, what I bring to the world. If you help people get cancer treatment, it's nice to know. With this thought it is more pleasant to go to work, it is easier to experience some negative moments, which in any case will be.
')
Company selection process
The company has an interesting interview structure in three stages.
The first stage is a technical interview, which takes place in the form of pair programming in a remote format. Together with one of the Vineti developers you are working on a task. This is not just an interview technique divorced from the company's reality; inside pair programming takes a significant part of the time. So already at the first stage you are in a sense getting to know how, and how you will be inside.
The second stage is something like a pair design. There is a task, and you need to design a data model. You are given business requirements and you are designing a data model. Then they give new business requirements, and you need to develop the model so that it supports them. But if the first stage is the simulation of the relations engineer-engineer, then the second about the simulation of the relations engineer-customer. And you pass it all with those with whom in the future and have to work.
The third stage is the cultural fit. There are about seven people sitting in front of you, and you simply communicate on various topics that may not directly concern work in order to understand whether you will live together as people. Cultural fit is not some hard-won questions. Later I saw several more similar interviews from the company, they were 70% different from mine.
All interviews were in English. This is the main working language: all meetings, rallies and correspondence occur in English. The rest is roughly equally used Russian and Armenian - depending on the mutual convenience of the interlocutors. In Yerevan itself, 95% of people speak at least one language - Russian or English.
Moving
Allocated a week before the move, and by and large on the fact that to collect his thoughts. He also moved a week before starting work. This week was to realize where I was, where to buy, and so on. Well, close all bureaucratic moments.
Housing
The HR team helped me a lot with finding housing. While you are looking, the company provides housing for a month, which is enough to find an apartment to your taste.
In terms of apartments - a great choice. Against the background of the salaries of programmers, finding something interesting here can be even easier than in Moscow. I had a plan - to pay as much, but to live in much better conditions. It is rarely possible to find an apartment here, which will be more expensive than $ 600 per month, if we consider no more than a three-room apartment in the center. Here, more often interesting layouts. For example, in Moscow, I have never seen in the price tag that I can afford, two-story apartments.
It is easy to find something in the city center, within walking distance from work. In Moscow, finding an apartment near work is quite expensive. Here is what you can afford. Especially, for the salary of a programmer, which may be slightly lower than in Moscow, but because of the general cheapness, you will still have more.
Documents
Everything is relatively quick and easy.
- It is necessary to issue social. card, you only need a passport and one day.
- It took about a week to issue a bank card (three working days + fell on the weekend). It should be borne in mind that banks are closing quite early. This applies to any move, you need to get used to the new work schedules. In Moscow I got used to the fact that after your work almost all instances are still working, here it is not so.
- Sim card - 15 minutes
- At work, they signed an agreement before the first working day. There were no peculiarities with this, only a social card was needed to enter into a contract.
Setup in the company
The process depends on the company, not the country. In Vineti formalized the process of onboarding. You come, and immediately expectation sync is given: what needs to be mastered in the first month, what goals to achieve in the first three. If you do not intuitively understand what to do, then you can always look at these goals and consciously approach work. Somewhere after a month and a half, I completely forgot about this expectation sync, I just did what I felt was due, and nevertheless acted in accordance with it. Expectation sync does not go against what you will do in the company, it is quite adequate. Even if you do not know about him, then 80% will execute on the machine.
In terms of technical setup, too, everything is clearly built. There are instructions on how to set up your machine so that all the necessary services work. In principle, in past works with this did not come across. Often in the companies onboarding lay in the fact that the immediate supervisor, a colleague on the team, or how it will develop, says what and how. The process has never been well formalized, and here it is really well done. This is one of those moments when I say that business inspires confidence.
Household trifles
- I have never traveled by local public transport. Here a taxi stands like a minibus in Moscow.
- Sometimes it is very easy to create the illusion that you speak Armenian. Sometimes I take a taxi and the driver doesn’t even know that I don’t understand. Sit down, say barev dzes [Hello], then he says some Armenian words and the name of your street, you say ayo [Yes]. At the end you say merci [thanks] and that's it.
- Armenians are often not very punctual, since it doesn’t get to work. This is also a self-balancing system. From the fact that there are many late, everything is still going fine. If you relax, then everything will be ok. But still, when planning your time, it is worth making an amendment to this local feature.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/450674/
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