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Sergey Arkhipenkov, CBOSS: Work at IT Companies: Choice of Professionals

A professional with a number of successful software system development projects in his/her background is welcome in many companies. Yet such an applicant would not agree to work for just any company as his/her demands are exceptional. And this is not just a question of money, which is not a problem for a well-established business. First and foremost a proven expert seeks the development of his/her creative potential and further professional growth. Whether such an opportunity is provided depends to a great extent on the company’s corporate culture and management style. However it is not always possible to obtain information on internal, sometimes unwritten, rules through the Internet or mass media. Therefore, when looking for a new employer, don’t hesitate to talk to a person who knows the company inside out.

mforum.ru, 21.06.2005

The career of an accomplished professional and the basic job selection criteria of an applicant with a sound background was the topic of an interview with Sergey Arkhipenkov, an experienced programmer and manager, and head of the CBOSS Advanced Projects Department.

Sergey Yakovlevich, what role did education play in your career?

No doubt education laid the foundations for my whole future life. I graduated from the MSU Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics. By then it had become the most prestigious institution of higher education to receive a mathematical education from. It was certainly a deliberate choice as I had always been keen on mathematics and I have never regretted it. I don’t think I could have received a better education anywhere else. When I entered the Moscow State University, I had no career plans or specific job in mind. I was just interested in the subject and university.

What was your first job upon graduating from this prestigious university?

My first job was at the Mission Control Center in Korolyov, Moscow Region, where I had been assigned to and was happy to work for nearly twenty years basically developing software for research problem-solving activities. My scientific career was quite successful. But my life took a turn and I was to obtain an executive position in Komsomol. I wouldn’t say I was too anxious for the duties of management but being young I was eager to try my hand at everything and besides I wanted to make the world a better place. That job gave me invaluable experience as it taught me how to understand people. After having worked as a Komsomol district committee secretary, at the age of 30 I became the youngest head of the scientific division in our Scientific Research Institute. I remember that at first the staff of the new department regarded me as a sort of ‘parachutist manager’ who was ‘air dropped’ by order but eventually ‘real work’ put everything into perspective. After just two years the department head was complaining that too many employees from other divisions were just dying to work in ours.

Has money and not enthusiasm ever determined your activities?

Of course it has. That’s exactly why I quit the MCC job. I left for PricewaterhouseCoopers to take the position of senior consultant. It was there where I started dealing with technologies which were new for the time such as analytical systems and data warehouse development. I believe it was this solid background that helped me to become one of the leading specialists in this field quite soon after. The knowledge and practical experience I’d accumulated was summarized in that ‘Oracle Express OLAP’ book of mine that was later translated into English and published in the United States.

What made you change your jobs?

If it was not financial necessity or a lack of confidence in the future, then interest in the work came foremost. Therefore if I didn’t get interested in it, I looked for a new area of application or a new job. Positions or ranks of seniority were not that appealing to me. For instance, after having dealt with OLAP and data warehouse technologies for four years, I decided I had done everything I wanted in this field. The idea of replicating the same solution for various projects did not attract me anymore so as soon as the opportunity arose I joined Luxoft company (part of the IBS Group of Companies) to work in offshore software development. My last project before joining CBOSS Association was an Internet sales system for a US-based aircraft construction company. The system was implemented and is still operating. The project development team received the award for the ‘Most Successful Project to Meet Customer Requirements’ from the Luxoft management.

By generally being distrustful of anything Russian, western customers did not award any serious knowledge-intensive tasks. For me that was indeed a drawback for if a person does not put any effort into something, he/she is more likely to forget how to do his/her job properly. Which is why at a certain point I began to feel my prospects for professional growth in this company were not that bright.

How did you join CBOSS?

I became interested in the company after seeing its HR ad on the cover of my latest ‘Data Warehouses’ book while I was fetching the author’s copy from the publishing house. The CBOSS website advertised a large number of vacancies, one of which was of special interest to me. I had by then completed another commercial project and was ready to consider job offers.

What do you find most attractive about CBOSS?

CBOSS is a unique and interesting company. It is stable, successful, hi-tech and growing rapidly. I particularly appreciate CBOSS’s practice of investing in intellectual potential, I mean its supporting of talented young people, its running of special courses in institutions of higher education, its offering both graduates and students the first jobs in their lives amongst other things.

To make a long story short, CBOSS provides its employees with every opportunity to build a career and it’s totally up to the employee to determine how successful it is going to be. For instance, a graduate of the MSU Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics led one of the major directions of a project after only having worked for two years in our department. Ronald Reagan once said: "Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere". Such an approach is more the product of proven experience than being naturally akin to my nature, but this is exactly what gives the best results in creative activities. When being a Komsomol secretary I used to advocate an autocratic management style. I could huff and puff and give orders. But with time I realized that it wasn’t the most efficient way to manage. Though I do think orders are sometimes vitally necessary as in a storm the ship’s crew need unquestionable orders from their captain rather than democratically decide the issue of whether to raise the sails or not.

I find it extremely important that my colleagues and I are working on a difficult but interesting project at CBOSS, namely the one of developing system-wide software based on J2EE standards to transfer CBOSS modules to new three-tier architecture. It consists of a set of standard components and services which, like meccano, will allow us to efficiently build high-quality CBOSS application subsystems. We have so far completed about two thirds of the planned scope of work and are now ‘testing’ the developed components by building a number of application subsystems. Our pilot Web Customer Care application, which has incorporated the functionalities of about a dozen CBOSS modules, is now being actively implemented by our new foreign customers.

Despite getting new offers of employment from time to time which are often higher-paid, I hope not to part with the company, at least while solutions to the project under way haven’t been found.

Is this sense of duty?

It’s rather my professional ambitions. I have never ever screwed up a single project. I hope this will never happen. I believe this is a problem that we can solve if not better than anyone else, then at least quite well. And while a solution hasn’t been found, it remains a professional challenge for me and another opportunity to confirm my expertise in my own mind and in the minds of my colleagues.