How a graduate of Fiztekh opened the largest programming school in Armenia
Karen Sharafyan was born and raised in Armenia, graduated from the Department of General and Applied Physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, entered the Skoltech and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, but decided to return to Armenia, where he and his partners opened the country's largest programming school. We talked with Karen about IT education in Armenia, the path of a junior, salaries in the Armenian technology sector, and what attracts Yerevan after Moscow.
What was your goal or idea when you opened the Armenian Code Academy (ACA)?
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Everything happened spontaneously. After graduating from Fiztekh, I decided to return to Armenia, there were several ideas what to do. Even then, the country was in great demand for developers, and one of the options in my head was the concept of ACA. Initially, we had 4 partners, a month later, two decided to leave. After another 2 weeks, a friend temporarily went back to Moscow, and I finished the project almost alone.
Somewhere in October 2015, we started the first classes, held them at the school where I once studied. And in less than a year and a half, we completed one of the largest projects - our first ML course for 30 students, 17 of them were medalists from various international competitions.
What technologies did you start with? What was the first course?
The first courses went on android and web development. After a couple of years, we already stopped taking a course in web development, and more specifically in PHP. This was a fairly popular direction, but few large companies in Armenia use PHP.
You are a physicist yourself, not a programmer, how did you select the first teachers, how could you evaluate and understand their level?
When we started, I was not familiar with the industry, I simply did not hear about many languages ​​and frameworks, I knew how to program only at the level that they are taught at the Physics and Technology College. But I was lucky to have a good network of technical people, and it is not only programmers. We turned to specialists, asked who they could recommend.
Now we often find people ourselves and write to them, or other teachers are referring someone. It turns out an ecosystem in which one teacher leads another, sometimes they jointly make one course. But still, teachers are our biggest problem. They are few.
Do all academy teachers work in parallel with training?
There are cool specialists who have accumulated a lot of experience and money and can already work only for the fan, but mostly yes, the teachers are actively working in parallel. It takes a lot of time and effort, so few people teach 12 months a year. Usually, teachers complete one course, relax for a couple of months and come back to us again. We try to adapt to their schedule as much as possible so as not to lose good people.
What is a newbie to ACA? How much time should pass from the moment "I am a complete zero" to "I found a job"?
For beginners, classes take place from two to three times a week for 2-3 months. This is a basic level. Then the course goes from 2 to 4 times a week, on average, the load is from 8 to 10 hours a week.
If you are “complete zero”, then you need to get basic knowledge. But if you know all this, then the shortest period is five months. Although you can go to a two-month QA course and then find a job, but this is no longer programming. On average, from 5 to 7 months.
This is our main business model: from newcomers who do not have experience in industrial programming to make people who are willing to work in companies. A third of our courses are for beginners. In the end, we sometimes arrange demo days when students show the projects that they have done during the training, companies evaluate students and invite them to interviews. The rest is courses conducted jointly with companies.
In general, there are three options for cooperation with companies:
What kind of specialists do you train? For example, what courses are currently taking place, and how many courses are taking at the same time?
We cover almost all areas that are currently on the Armenian tech market: from design to testing, probably not counting only products, but this year we will begin to prepare them. Now there are about 15 courses running along with an average of 15-20 people per group.
Now the most popular direction is JavaScript, although the first two years we did not touch it at all. Approximately 80 people apply for one JavaScript course, and 20 places. Somehow, we had a JS course together with BetConstruct, 2,000 people applied for 50 places. There were machine learning courses, when about 700 people were applied for 30 places.
Can it then be said that JS is the most demanded technology in the Armenian market?
That's a moot point. Most companies use Java. But, for example, few companies use Node.js, and there are few specialists either. So when you want to find a Node.js developer, it takes a lot more time. According to golang there are few specialists. Few people with good infrastructure knowledge, all kinds of Spark, Hadoop, Sala. They have little work with such technologies, but they are very much appreciated.
Back to the students. How then do you select students if at least 4 people are applying for one place?
When there are a lot of people, we spend one stage online, then two offline - an exam plus an interview.
We use Hackerrank for online interviews, where you can track plagiarism, see how often a person exited his browser while solving a problem.
The second stage is already an exam with us. And those who write it well are interviewed. The interview is technical, but if many companies collaborate on the same course, we must understand which student is applying for which company. Therefore, we sometimes ask about preferences: where a person wants to go to work, which company - large, small, startup, not startup, what tasks he wants to solve.
If the course goes with some company, what percentage of graduates then get there?
Differently. There are companies that want absolutely everyone who completed their course to go to work for them. There are very selective companies that select only a small proportion of graduates. There are companies that are also quite selective, but even if all graduates are technically satisfied with them, they give the right to choose.
When we conducted the first course on a typewriter, 100% of students got a job in partner companies. 34 people, and everyone began to work. So the rate is often 100 percent.
Graduates of courses for beginners often come to us for more advanced courses, and only then get a job.
Approximately how many companies are cooperating with you now?
If we consider how many companies over the past 4 years in some form have cooperated with us, then the figure will be close to 100. But if you count the companies with which we are actively working, this is already about 10.
As a person who has been in IT education for more than 4 years, how do you generally evaluate technical education in Armenia?
We have a good mathematical base, which has remained since Soviet times. It greatly helps graduates to learn programming faster and become the best in this field. If you have a poor mathematical base, the bold part of interesting opportunities is closed for you.
But universities are slowly adapting to the real industry. Although, perhaps this is not necessary. Perhaps, over time, the university will turn into a model of education, where people go to later engage in science. In this case, it is not necessary to adapt to the industry, you need to continue to give fundamental knowledge and stimulate research. Suppose in a year a new technology appears, and universities are not required to adapt to everything that changes so quickly. It is important that a person has a good command of analysis and algebra, and does not know certain functions of JS. The second is much easier to train, and we do it. Learning fundamental knowledge takes more time.
What can you say about the IT sector in Armenia?
It seems to me that salaries are higher than they should be. There is a feeling that in Russia you can often find specialists better, but for the same money. In Armenia, there is a very wide variation between the salary of a beginner and an experienced engineer. If in the States, for example, the difference is three times, then here it can reach up to 10.
And I would not say that there are a lot of juniors. It’s just real to find them, but few people with experience. Many good specialists are trying to lure those giants. And you, as a local company, must compete with them. I’m not saying that companies pay the same amount with Google, but they are forced to pay huge sums to lure from another company, which also works in the local market, and to somehow compete with international companies for brains.
Yes, every year the market is growing quite rapidly. I often saw three people in the company a couple of years ago, now it is 100 people. Or how some product started from the garage, and now has built its own building. I see this trend.
I see many opportunities for people who make their own product. It turns out that you have small costs at the initial stage, due to this, without even attracting large investments, you can reach the level where the company provides itself.
I feel that in the next 5 years this industry will continue to grow. And for a longer period it’s difficult to predict, technologies can change unpredictably.
Do you have an example that five years ago the company had three people in the garage, and now it is something more?
For example, Renderforest. Companies seem to be no more than 5 years old, they have achieved some financial success, recently built a building. Or BetConstruct. Now there are 1800 people, and 10 years ago they were not in this business. They were in the gaming industry, but there was no product. There are many outsourcing companies in which about 5-20 years ago there were 10-20 people, and now 200 people.
Are there many outsourcing companies in Armenia?
It depends on what a word means. I don’t know why, but in Armenia outsourcing is considered something bad. A lot of outsourcing companies say - we are outsourcing now, but tomorrow we will definitely start making our product. I see this as negative, if a person is well involved in his own business, then he should be proud of it.
And even if you look from the point of view of the country, it is believed that if you do outsourcing, it can not bring a lot of money. And if you make a product, then you can get rich. But in fact, many outsourcing companies are registered here, and accordingly, finances also come to Armenia, are spent here. And food companies are mainly registered in states in different cities of California or in Delaware.
Back to the products, name 3 cool Armenian products
The first is 2hz . I really like their product, they solve a rather interesting problem. I like that the task is mathematical, that this is not ordinary software development, but a part of science.
CodeSignal likes both the product and the model. They do about the same as Hackerrank, so they can now scale the work much more than with the old model.
PicsArt as a product is not very interesting to me, but I like the business. It’s just not my target product; I like their story that they started from scratch and for a long time did not attract investment. They took investments only when they could already do without them.
Why did you decide to return to Armenia? What did not work in Russia?
If I had not returned to Armenia, I would most likely have left for Europe, but now I would have regretted it. There I would have been doing very different things, probably science. Of course, there are moments that I do not like in Armenia, but there are things that attract. But it seems to me that this is not the most important. More important is how you can be realized as a specialist, as a person, rather than how much you like food or traffic jams.
Here, for example, a low entry threshold. You can decide that you are engaged in real estate, and in three months start building a cottage village. In the states you decide that you want to do real estate, then you will show apartments for about five years, then you will start buying and renting apartments, and after another 10 years you will start building something yourself.
There are a lot of possibilities. A lot of startups, and a lot of people get it. There are few examples when a strong team and a normal idea, and they do not succeed. A lot of social security, it seems to me. For a very long time, people can go to breakeven, when another startup has already burned all the money that they had. In Armenia, companies can work for a little money for a long time.
What was your goal or idea when you opened the Armenian Code Academy (ACA)?
')
Everything happened spontaneously. After graduating from Fiztekh, I decided to return to Armenia, there were several ideas what to do. Even then, the country was in great demand for developers, and one of the options in my head was the concept of ACA. Initially, we had 4 partners, a month later, two decided to leave. After another 2 weeks, a friend temporarily went back to Moscow, and I finished the project almost alone.
Somewhere in October 2015, we started the first classes, held them at the school where I once studied. And in less than a year and a half, we completed one of the largest projects - our first ML course for 30 students, 17 of them were medalists from various international competitions.
What technologies did you start with? What was the first course?
The first courses went on android and web development. After a couple of years, we already stopped taking a course in web development, and more specifically in PHP. This was a fairly popular direction, but few large companies in Armenia use PHP.
You are a physicist yourself, not a programmer, how did you select the first teachers, how could you evaluate and understand their level?
When we started, I was not familiar with the industry, I simply did not hear about many languages ​​and frameworks, I knew how to program only at the level that they are taught at the Physics and Technology College. But I was lucky to have a good network of technical people, and it is not only programmers. We turned to specialists, asked who they could recommend.
Now we often find people ourselves and write to them, or other teachers are referring someone. It turns out an ecosystem in which one teacher leads another, sometimes they jointly make one course. But still, teachers are our biggest problem. They are few.
Do all academy teachers work in parallel with training?
There are cool specialists who have accumulated a lot of experience and money and can already work only for the fan, but mostly yes, the teachers are actively working in parallel. It takes a lot of time and effort, so few people teach 12 months a year. Usually, teachers complete one course, relax for a couple of months and come back to us again. We try to adapt to their schedule as much as possible so as not to lose good people.
What is a newbie to ACA? How much time should pass from the moment "I am a complete zero" to "I found a job"?
For beginners, classes take place from two to three times a week for 2-3 months. This is a basic level. Then the course goes from 2 to 4 times a week, on average, the load is from 8 to 10 hours a week.
If you are “complete zero”, then you need to get basic knowledge. But if you know all this, then the shortest period is five months. Although you can go to a two-month QA course and then find a job, but this is no longer programming. On average, from 5 to 7 months.
This is our main business model: from newcomers who do not have experience in industrial programming to make people who are willing to work in companies. A third of our courses are for beginners. In the end, we sometimes arrange demo days when students show the projects that they have done during the training, companies evaluate students and invite them to interviews. The rest is courses conducted jointly with companies.
In general, there are three options for cooperation with companies:
- The company simply recruits graduates of our courses.
- We make an exclusive course for the company, tailor the program to its needs and technologies.
- Courses for employees of a particular company.
What kind of specialists do you train? For example, what courses are currently taking place, and how many courses are taking at the same time?
We cover almost all areas that are currently on the Armenian tech market: from design to testing, probably not counting only products, but this year we will begin to prepare them. Now there are about 15 courses running along with an average of 15-20 people per group.
Now the most popular direction is JavaScript, although the first two years we did not touch it at all. Approximately 80 people apply for one JavaScript course, and 20 places. Somehow, we had a JS course together with BetConstruct, 2,000 people applied for 50 places. There were machine learning courses, when about 700 people were applied for 30 places.
Can it then be said that JS is the most demanded technology in the Armenian market?
That's a moot point. Most companies use Java. But, for example, few companies use Node.js, and there are few specialists either. So when you want to find a Node.js developer, it takes a lot more time. According to golang there are few specialists. Few people with good infrastructure knowledge, all kinds of Spark, Hadoop, Sala. They have little work with such technologies, but they are very much appreciated.
Back to the students. How then do you select students if at least 4 people are applying for one place?
When there are a lot of people, we spend one stage online, then two offline - an exam plus an interview.
We use Hackerrank for online interviews, where you can track plagiarism, see how often a person exited his browser while solving a problem.
The second stage is already an exam with us. And those who write it well are interviewed. The interview is technical, but if many companies collaborate on the same course, we must understand which student is applying for which company. Therefore, we sometimes ask about preferences: where a person wants to go to work, which company - large, small, startup, not startup, what tasks he wants to solve.
If the course goes with some company, what percentage of graduates then get there?
Differently. There are companies that want absolutely everyone who completed their course to go to work for them. There are very selective companies that select only a small proportion of graduates. There are companies that are also quite selective, but even if all graduates are technically satisfied with them, they give the right to choose.
When we conducted the first course on a typewriter, 100% of students got a job in partner companies. 34 people, and everyone began to work. So the rate is often 100 percent.
Graduates of courses for beginners often come to us for more advanced courses, and only then get a job.
Approximately how many companies are cooperating with you now?
If we consider how many companies over the past 4 years in some form have cooperated with us, then the figure will be close to 100. But if you count the companies with which we are actively working, this is already about 10.
As a person who has been in IT education for more than 4 years, how do you generally evaluate technical education in Armenia?
We have a good mathematical base, which has remained since Soviet times. It greatly helps graduates to learn programming faster and become the best in this field. If you have a poor mathematical base, the bold part of interesting opportunities is closed for you.
But universities are slowly adapting to the real industry. Although, perhaps this is not necessary. Perhaps, over time, the university will turn into a model of education, where people go to later engage in science. In this case, it is not necessary to adapt to the industry, you need to continue to give fundamental knowledge and stimulate research. Suppose in a year a new technology appears, and universities are not required to adapt to everything that changes so quickly. It is important that a person has a good command of analysis and algebra, and does not know certain functions of JS. The second is much easier to train, and we do it. Learning fundamental knowledge takes more time.
What can you say about the IT sector in Armenia?
It seems to me that salaries are higher than they should be. There is a feeling that in Russia you can often find specialists better, but for the same money. In Armenia, there is a very wide variation between the salary of a beginner and an experienced engineer. If in the States, for example, the difference is three times, then here it can reach up to 10.
And I would not say that there are a lot of juniors. It’s just real to find them, but few people with experience. Many good specialists are trying to lure those giants. And you, as a local company, must compete with them. I’m not saying that companies pay the same amount with Google, but they are forced to pay huge sums to lure from another company, which also works in the local market, and to somehow compete with international companies for brains.
Yes, every year the market is growing quite rapidly. I often saw three people in the company a couple of years ago, now it is 100 people. Or how some product started from the garage, and now has built its own building. I see this trend.
I see many opportunities for people who make their own product. It turns out that you have small costs at the initial stage, due to this, without even attracting large investments, you can reach the level where the company provides itself.
I feel that in the next 5 years this industry will continue to grow. And for a longer period it’s difficult to predict, technologies can change unpredictably.
Do you have an example that five years ago the company had three people in the garage, and now it is something more?
For example, Renderforest. Companies seem to be no more than 5 years old, they have achieved some financial success, recently built a building. Or BetConstruct. Now there are 1800 people, and 10 years ago they were not in this business. They were in the gaming industry, but there was no product. There are many outsourcing companies in which about 5-20 years ago there were 10-20 people, and now 200 people.
Are there many outsourcing companies in Armenia?
It depends on what a word means. I don’t know why, but in Armenia outsourcing is considered something bad. A lot of outsourcing companies say - we are outsourcing now, but tomorrow we will definitely start making our product. I see this as negative, if a person is well involved in his own business, then he should be proud of it.
And even if you look from the point of view of the country, it is believed that if you do outsourcing, it can not bring a lot of money. And if you make a product, then you can get rich. But in fact, many outsourcing companies are registered here, and accordingly, finances also come to Armenia, are spent here. And food companies are mainly registered in states in different cities of California or in Delaware.
Back to the products, name 3 cool Armenian products
The first is 2hz . I really like their product, they solve a rather interesting problem. I like that the task is mathematical, that this is not ordinary software development, but a part of science.
CodeSignal likes both the product and the model. They do about the same as Hackerrank, so they can now scale the work much more than with the old model.
PicsArt as a product is not very interesting to me, but I like the business. It’s just not my target product; I like their story that they started from scratch and for a long time did not attract investment. They took investments only when they could already do without them.
Why did you decide to return to Armenia? What did not work in Russia?
If I had not returned to Armenia, I would most likely have left for Europe, but now I would have regretted it. There I would have been doing very different things, probably science. Of course, there are moments that I do not like in Armenia, but there are things that attract. But it seems to me that this is not the most important. More important is how you can be realized as a specialist, as a person, rather than how much you like food or traffic jams.
Here, for example, a low entry threshold. You can decide that you are engaged in real estate, and in three months start building a cottage village. In the states you decide that you want to do real estate, then you will show apartments for about five years, then you will start buying and renting apartments, and after another 10 years you will start building something yourself.
There are a lot of possibilities. A lot of startups, and a lot of people get it. There are few examples when a strong team and a normal idea, and they do not succeed. A lot of social security, it seems to me. For a very long time, people can go to breakeven, when another startup has already burned all the money that they had. In Armenia, companies can work for a little money for a long time.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/461367/
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