How to Help Tech Specialists Grow
Money is no longer the main motivation for Ukrainian programmers. As my experience proves, it is an opportunity to develop themselves and and participate in complex R&D projects that drives engineers the most.
When you develop software for medical devices that can save lives or create programs for mixing consoles that Radiohead uses during their live performances, it is truly inspiring. Every engineer wants to fully reveal his or her talent and gain more freedom (and hence responsibility) in the project. Therefore, at GlobalLogic we are trying to build our development system so that our experts could get not only complex tasks, but also all the skills they need to solve them.
Hard Skills
The training of technical specialists at GlobalLogic is primarily introduced through the mentoring system. The company has raised a lot of experienced engineers who are ready to share their knowledge. They help young specialists adapt to new conditions and projects quickly and comfortably, as well as conduct regular training lectures. It is important to give an opportunity to develop as a coach to everyone who has corresponding knowledge and skills. It enhances the engagement of our experts and provides their horizontal growth.
The activities we hold include meetings on relevant technical topics. There you can hear about new technologies and approaches in software development and practice using different tools during trainings. As 95% of our trainers are internal professionals, education takes place in a relaxed atmosphere among colleagues.
Soft Skills and Flexible Methodologies
There is no doubt that writing a good code is an art. But a modern programmer also has to deliver his or her ideas in a language that the customer can understand, turn the presentation of the product in a small show, build long-term communication with the team and customers, etc.
Usually, tech specialists understand how useful it is to have extensive soft skills, so they regularly seek assistance of HR-department. Some want to master the art of negotiating and solving conflicts, some need to improve spoken English for daily communication with clients. Upon obtaining such requests from engineers, we organize relevant trainings for them. For example, we were excited to see how effective a game-based training on teamwork skills conducted by Agile coaches can be.
Humanities
It is not enough to have only applied knowledge in order to create innovative technological products. What it also takes is to have a developed imagination, a rich worldview and good understanding of world trends. First and foremost, these skills are formed by soft science. Taking these trends in the IT market into account, we thought of starting an educational project with a focus on humanities. In summer 2016, we held the Art Summer Project: three lectures on contemporary art by Pavlo Gudimov, a director of Ya Gallery. It had such success and attendance that we decided to start a two-year initiative we have called GlobalLogic Cultural Project, which still goes on.
Before, we had certain separated lectures on culture from time to time, but then we realized that an educational project with a structured approach to teaching would give us much more. Combining efforts with Cultural Project, which is one of the leading educational platforms in Ukraine, we managed to bring together a pool of prominent mentors and lecturers with a great public speaking experience. Yuriy Makarov spoke to our specialists about journalism, writer Lubko Deresh reflected on literature, artist Alevtina Kakhidze and cultural critic Olga Balashova talked about contemporary art. Each topic, be it film or music, philosophy, politics or economics, was discussed during three evening lectures in our office.
Unlike one-time lectures, the Cultural Project's integrated approach appeared to be able to form communities. Together with the curators, our experts visited Pinchuk Art Prize exhibition, went to city tour on constructivist architecture, created special chats to discuss books. Such initiatives help our experts get acquainted and become friends even better than some traditional team building activities. And apart from sharing thoughts on their favorite movies, they exchange valuable experience and insights from their fields of development.