How to assemble an IT team

    The specialist must be in his place - this will allow him to be successful and develop both for him and the company-employer. This is true for the IT sector, as well as for any other. However, an IT specialist is not an ordinary office employee, and he needs a special approach. In this article, I tried to summarize the experience of a number of IT companies in the selection and promotion of technical personnel.

    Myths about IT professionals
    Of course, there is a specificity for working with IT staff, but the differences between IT employees and ordinary users are often exaggerated. Here are the most common misconceptions:
    • IT people are very peculiar. In almost everything. For a fellow user it is not clear how to deal with them, motivate, evaluate, train.
    • IT people speak their language. For their part, the language of ordinary users is avian. Agreeing is extremely difficult.
    • IT employs people who are guided exclusively by logic and rational thinking. Emotions are alien to them.

    But its specific features and jargon are inherent in any profession. The accountant also speaks a language understandable only to other accountants. What is not a peculiar person - a journalist? Etc. At the same time, no matter how strongly these people identify with the profession, their actions are most often determined by universal human motives.
    Therefore, when organizing the work of IT specialists, the same principles of interaction will be fair as for other employees. There are also features that must be considered to achieve the goals of an IT company.

    Programmers are not only valuable code.
    By what criteria are IT specialists usually selected? Naturally, technical skills come to the fore, a list of which is entered in the text of the vacancy. So, for example, the desired programmer must have a certain set of languages, environments, technologies, debugging tools ... And if the knowledge and experience of a potential employee (at least, stated at the interview) perfectly matches the requirements indicated in the vacancy, then this is the one who needs ? By this principle, many IT companies are recruiting specialists. However, there is another approach. In many small companies (including startups), as well as large and successful, executives tend to dig deeper than technical competences in an interview, feel “their employee” and weed out the “left”. How to do it? Just talk. About previous experience plans for the future and on topics abstracted from work. In many cases, this approach is justified. After all, how efficiently a programmer can work depends largely on his ability to learn, responsibility, interest in overall success and ability to interact within a team. As a rule, you should not make a choice based on personal qualities to the detriment of professional ones, but it would be nice to compare the values ​​of the applicant with the values ​​of the company and the leader. Disagreements come to light sooner or later and can seriously interfere with work. you should not make a choice on the basis of personal qualities to the detriment of professional ones, but it would be nice to compare the values ​​of the applicant with the values ​​of the company and the leader. Disagreements come to light sooner or later and can seriously interfere with work. you should not make a choice on the basis of personal qualities to the detriment of professional ones, but it would be nice to compare the values ​​of the applicant with the values ​​of the company and the leader. Disagreements come to light sooner or later and can seriously interfere with work.
    As for professional skills, it is not so much experience that matters as skill and willingness to learn. Indeed, in many cases it is enough to sit for several days (nights, hours, weeks) with a textbook to master the technology that is missing for the post.

    Where do IT leaders come from?
    The classic situation is when the head of an IT company is a technical specialist, whom fate has forced to take up management. But the promotion of a talented IT specialist to a leading position can lead to the collapse of the project, or even the work of the entire company. So you can lose a high-class programmer and get a not very strong leader (which is often worse than none at all). After all, IT gurus quite rarely possess the necessary qualities and skills necessary for a manager. This is the ability to build communications, motivate subordinates, set goals, plan, etc. A similar set of qualities can often be found in an employee who is not very outstanding in solving technical problems. It would be logical to entrust the leadership to him.
    However, will the promotion of such an “average” specialist (in which the manager’s potential is visible) cause discontent in the team? Probably not. And there are several reasons for this. It is worth noting that IT specialists are far from always eager to lead. Many, having tried themselves in the role of boss, are happy to return to their code - it is better if others rake up pieces of paper and other people's problems. In addition, a leading technical specialist often receives more than a line manager and does not feel underestimated at all.
    Motorola has found a solution to this problem. There, experts are offered the opportunity to develop in one of two areas: technical or managerial. At a certain stage of his career, the employee decides what is closer to him - to supervise the directions and projects in the technical part or to be responsible for administrative issues.
    But offering a leadership position to a classroom technician is one of the possible extremes. Why not invite a project manager to work as a project manager, even if he does not have a technical background and experience in IT? In this case, a person must have a technical vein, the ability to understand the documentation and evaluate the complexity of the tasks. For a truly talented manager (unless he is a 100% humanitarian) this will be possible.

    And yet, how to put together an excellent IT team that will work for the result? Universal solutions do not exist. But, guided by the experience of other companies and their own deep understanding of the situation, you can find a solution even in very difficult cases.

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