Greetings Today Victoria Zhislina and Alexey Rogachkov were our interlocutors - we asked them a couple of questions, the answers to which you can find below.



The topic of the first discussion is the new Intel Lynnfield family of processors, 32 nm technology, HyperThreading, multi-core SIMD instructions and its impact on program performance, features for optimizing applications for Intel microarchitecture, using cache, problems with data sharing and so on. Do not hesitate to participate in the discussion and ask your questions - the most interesting questions (on the topic) and active participants will not be ignored. Link for those who do not understand :)

Vika Zhislina , consulting engineer for software development companies, at Intel since 2000.
')

How is it that a beautiful lady is engaged in such technical things?

I grew up among huge computing cabinets - these were computers of the EU and BESM series. My father is a mathematician, and in his institute there was such a technique, respectively, it happened so that I became very interested in programming. Then, when I chose the university, I took up physics - I graduated from NSU with a degree in laser physics, but at the same time, while studying, I still realized that programming was even more interesting for me. So when I graduated from university, I almost accidentally came to work at a small company engaged in offshore programming. Soon this company was bought by Intel.

What do you do at Intel?

The first few years I was engaged in a very extensive project - "synthetic video MPEG4." The idea is to automatically create three-dimensional models of people, and then, for example, during a video conference, you can not transmit the image of a person: an ordinary webcam recognizes what a person does — say, smiles, blinks, or says something — and only the parameters of these actions are transmitted to the other interlocutor, which the synthetic three-dimensional model then repeats.
You know, there is such a good phrase: "Who knows how to do, does, and who does not know, teaches others." I have been teaching others since some time. My position is called Senior Application Engineer. There are two types of engineers - some are Software Engineers, those who create software products, and I am Application Engineer, a consulting engineer who works with external clients of Intel.
If earlier, Intel created new processors with increasing frequency, and developers released new programs that automatically run faster on these processors, now the situation has changed - the technology of increasing the frequency of the processor has almost reached the limit, but new processor technologies have appeared - for example, multi-core. Now developers need to help adapt their programs to new Intel platforms - this is exactly what I'm doing. Of course, I'm not the only one - there are many of us at Intel, everyone has their own specialization. Initially, I was engaged in processors for mobile devices XScale, but in 2006, Intel sold them, and now I focused on other tasks. First, since I have significant experience with graphics, I work on integrated Intel graphics adapters, which already exist, and a new discrete graphics adapter, which is known by the code name Larrabee. Secondly, and, perhaps, "in the main", I deal with various issues related to multi-core and multi-threaded programming.

How is your working day?

It is built on a free schedule - I am very pleased with it. I have so-called accounts, that is, external client companies with which I work. They have some questions about current tasks - we correspond, negotiate telephone bridges and personal visits with them, my task is to help them debug programs so that no problems with Intel hardware arise, and our equipment, accordingly, does not There were problems with the software part of third-party developers. Of course, I interact with my colleagues - usually, through telephone bridges, we gather and discuss some problems.

Your office is pretty loose attire. And around you, probably, programmers-men in large quantities?

Yes exactly.

And you dress ...

You know, very differently. I do different and I like to change. Here I must say that my husband also works at Intel, he is a leading developer of Intel tools, so I can’t afford any special liberties.


Vika Zhislina, consulting engineer for software development companies, at Intel since 2000. He dresses very differently :)

Did you meet your husband at work?

Yes. And you know, this is very good - I often travel on business trips, since clients are scattered throughout Europe, and he treats all this with understanding.

* * *

Alexey Rogachkov , Regional Product Implementation Specialist, at Intel since 2004.

Alexey, how did you get to Intel?

Before I came to Intel, I mostly studied. By and large, I was recruited when I had not finished college. Funny fact: I myself am from Moscow, but the position for which I applied was open in the Nizhny Novgorod laboratory. Initially, the option of moving was not considered, but there was a curious story. I arrived at the interview in Nizhny, not expecting to get a job, especially, and after a stream of questions from two representatives of Albion, I went to the dining room there. Nerves, you know, calm. It was my turn to pay, and the girl did not have a change from my five hundred ruble note for a box office embossing, I didn’t have any other money with me. I was extremely surprised that at that moment the guy who was behind me in the queue, seeing that the situation was stalemate, quickly ran to his workplace and returned with exchanges - in the end I did not go without lunch, and got the first positive impression of potential colleagues . So after two weeks, when I was called back from the personnel department and made an offer, I did not hesitate for a long time.

And then you returned to Moscow?

That's right - in Nizhny, I was engaged in server glands, and, basically, I helped my customers with the solution of technical difficulties, and after a year and a half, I moved to another position in the Moscow office.

Namely?

Now I have three main activities. The first is the transition of local companies to new platforms and technologies. In particular, my task is to ensure that my customers are aware of when a new platform comes out, what functionality it will have, what advantages the transition will bring, and how new products will fit into the company's lineup. Customers should be able to test engineering samples long before the official release of the product. Well and, of course, with almost any new product at the testing stage, unforeseen problems arise that must be solved - some are solved quite simply, some require the intervention of colleagues from the factory. Thus, by the time the platform is launched, a lot of work is being done to ensure that our partners simultaneously with the announcement will provide ready-made solutions based on the building blocks that Intel supplies.
The second task is technical PR, in particular, working with journalists in order to clarify in more detail what Intel made in the next generation of processors or other products, what was interesting, and how it works ... It’s always a pleasure to criticize a big company, but when you start to understand how much labor was invested in the new product, what difficulties had to be overcome in order for it to appear on the market and reach the store shelves, then respectful attitude towards the developers, their experience, knowledge, work and diligence arises. And if, as a result of the answers to the questions, a positive article or review appears, telling in detail about those or other details, we can assume that this time I coped with my task.

The third direction is largely connected with end customers, and since a foreign territory is the internal affairs of a third-party company, not all information is public. I sometimes get attracted to assess the competitive position, the selection of the correct configuration against the background of existing problems, the preparation of proposals and justifications.

Alexey, what could you tell the audience about?

Just the other day, Intel announced the start of shipments of new processors, which were previously code-named Lynnfield, and will be sold under the brand name Intel Core i7 8xx series and Intel Core i5. These processors are a relatively recent topic.
And of course, if you have questions about the current model range of server, desktop, mobile processors, system logic sets; Intel technologies, the purpose of these technologies, and implementation - I will try to answer these questions.

If we take the project area, then I would choose the overall plan. Any project taking place at the end customer, whether it be a state institution or a bank, is always a separate story. And this is not only our history, but also the history of our customers. Therefore, while maintaining confidentiality, I am ready to tell how our participation may look, at what stages and with what exactly we can help, with which departments we interact, how the project is divided, for which each of the parties is responsible.

Everything :)

Actually, questions can already be asked!

Let me remind you how everything will be:
- on Monday, we post interviews with our employees on one of the topics;
- until 15:00 on Wednesday we collect your questions;
- and on Wednesday, from 15.00 our employees will answer them.

Successes!