«Don’t listen to the team leader – he’s old and foolish»: bad advice for IT Juniors from Victor, Lead Frontend Developer

Hi, Vitya.

Thank you for agreeing to talk and answer our boring, and not;), questions for the GP Solutions career website blog. You’re quite a notable person in Frontend Developer’s circles. You have been working in this field for more than 10 years, a well-known speaker at conferences and meetups, a member of the Frontend Conf program committee, an invited guest of various podcasts and programs. Any regular information about you can be easily found on the web;)

– So let’s start this way: 5 facts about Vitya Rusakovich that are impossible to google;)

I can say hello in Finnish, Estonian, Swedish, Turkish, German, French, Spanish. This is 7 at once.

A bonus: I participated in the district mathematics Olympiad.

And I took 2nd place in the city championship on Call of Duty 2. 

In FSC (“Fun and Smart’s Club”, a student quiz game in which teams show erudition and quick wit) at the university: also second place.

– You have been working at GP Solutions for 11 years. How many times during this period did you want to quit?;)

Zero times. Otherwise you would know.

– But seriously, 11 years is a very long time to work in one company for the modern IT industry. What keeps or attracts you to GP Solutions so much? What values do you share with the company?

I have a cool team, a fascinating project for real people: millions of people per year buy and change tickets for ships via our applications. And it’s a lot happens inside the project – there is always something to know, to learn. 

It is difficult to single out just one factor, all of the above leaves positive emotions after work – this is the most important.

– We noticed that on GitHub you count days in GP Solutions. What are you doing with this info?;) Do you celebrate significant dates, like 1000, 2000 days, etc?;)

The calculation is carried out automatically. I did not mark dates, missed this opportunity… Maybe I’ll celebrate retrospectively.

– Now your position in the company is Lead Frontend Developer. How much time you have been moving to this position? What helped to succeed? Do you continue coding?)

It happened that I participated in the client’s project from the very beginning, 2012. And all this time I helped to hire people to our team. And in the spring of 2020, the customer’s Team lead left and this role passed to me. There were more activities besides coding, and now everything at the front is my responsibility. Scapegoat was found. But this is an interesting experience also.

I continue to code. The number of hours decreased, the complexity increased. Now, in addition to the applications themselves, it is necessary to serve DX, Front Ops.

– You have a great sense of humor. You are always the star of the corporate Secret Santa and plays a lead role in it. Creative and funny effects at video calls – it’s so hard to imagine you without them;) So let’s make a little joke now;) Category “Bad advice for IT Juniors.” Vitya, do it!;)

Ok, lets start;)

• Every Monday add a new library to the project
• Every full moon – change the major version of the collector. If the collector is the latest version already, change the collector.
• Push directly to the master. No tests. Name all the committees “Fix bug” or “Add feature”.
• Change the framework once a year. If you’ve tried all the frameworks, change the language, and go over the frameworks there.
• Don’t listen to the team leader – he’s old and foolish.

– What’s about Christmas Eve?;) What is the best gift for Vitya Rusakovich?

New framework.

– What do you wish for your colleagues and all those who will read the interview?

All the best for colleagues. Those who read the interview – do not worry about the time spent for it;)

Thank you, Vitya, for your time! And see you at the Secret Santa;)

Vitya’s GitHub with all the speaking