April 6, 2017 at 16:01Interview with Global Marketing Programs Manager at JetBrains by Michael Wink
Today's JetBrains blog post is not quite an ordinary post: Maria Antropova, head of the marketing research team at JetBrains, interviewed Mikhail Wink, who works for us as Global Marketing Programs Manager (and from his answers it’s clear what kind of position this is). Some readers of our blog (especially those who write in PHP) may know Michael from his previous area of responsibility at JetBrains.
Help: Mikhail Vink has been with JetBrains since 2012. He joined the company as a Product Marketing Manager (PMM) in the PhpStorm team. Now he is engaged in debugging various processes in marketing. He graduated from LETI under the program “Computer Security and Information Protection”. In the past - the owner of his own web studio.
With Misha, we call on Skype, since two and a half years ago he transferred to the Munich office. Hereinafter in italics - approx. interviewer.
Misha, hi. I would like to start from the time when you have not worked in the company, because almost every of our employees has an interesting story about how he got into JetBrains. Will you share yours?
Yes, this is a really interesting story. Many of our employees got into the company, having done the “classic” way: first 239 (Presidential FML No. 239), then mat-fur of St. Petersburg State University. When I just got settled and my profile appeared on the corporate network, many employees thought that I was my brother. He just studied in 239 and on mat-fur. That is, according to the standard course of events, it was logical to assume that it was he. But it was me, who studied in a regular school and further in LETI. It happened.
Can you tell us in more detail how it happened? Perhaps we should return to student days?
Probably even earlier. I began to look for the first job in the 7th grade. At first, he helped in the father’s computer company in the summer, replaced the secretary. Then he decided to find something else, but they didn’t take me anywhere except Oriflame. I did not want to work in Oriflame, because, according to rumors, the young people who were involved in this were often beaten in the process. Once I did an online store for my father and got a laptop on barter. I realized that I could do this. I sent about 30 resumes, did a test task for one company and got the job of a junior PHP developer. A year and a half worked remotely with them, and then went to freelance. There were more opportunities. This freelance flowed smoothly into my first own company.
First one? Were there others?
Yes, in total I had three companies. Everyone was somehow connected with the development. The first then smoothly turned into the third, which was engaged in the development of software, web services and consulting. The second was born from one of the projects to develop advertising automation systems. By the time I was about to leave the business, we confidently occupied several niches related primarily to the real sector of the economy: information products for the sale and sale of auto parts.
Many people do not like working “for uncle” and consider their own business the ultimate dream. How did it happen that you left your business in someone else's business?
In service development, it became boring, because projects and customers were essentially the same. But I didn’t have my own ideas about creating my own real product or the idea of a grocery business. At some point, I met with the founder of the GameChangers project Sergey Dmitriev ( not to be confused with Sergey Dmitriev - the founder and president of JetBrains ). He told me: “We have GameChangers, just for you.” I did not really understand what it was about, but I went for an interview with Veronika Vetrova, and they took me. I was wondering how to do a normal grocery business in IT and not only. I decided that I need to sell my companies and go to a normal place to work.
Do your companies exist now?
Now, no, as I said, the first company was reborn into the third, in which I had a partner. I sold it to my friends, and they integrated and assimilated it into their process. The second company opened under the project, the project ended, the company was closed. Everything that happened at the time of the sale of the third company, became for me an additional argument to why I do not want to have my own business.
Apparently, it was a very busy period of life. What would you recommend to people who want to do business in Russia?
I would give advice to study the materiel and understand how to protect yourself in advance within the framework of the realities that actually exist, especially at the moment when the business grows to more or less significant volumes.
You came to JetBrains as a PMMa, why not a developer?
I do not reach the level of a developer in JetBrains, and a programmer would simply not have taken me.
Isn't it hard to work with programmers?
Easy because it’s close to programming.
What was the hardest part of your first year at JetBrains?
Learning to wait: not everything I want is done quickly. We have not only product teams, but also divisions that solve primarily internal problems (teams of designers, researchers, Internet marketing, etc.). Everyone has their own priorities. And my priorities are not always put in the first place, which is absolutely normal for a large company, but as a representative of a small business it was difficult for me to get used to it.
You have been working PMM for a long time, how would you define the main task of a person working in this position? I know that each in his own way formulates the answer to this question, it is interesting to know yours.
PMM is a person who needs to think about the product business, to be an advocate for product users within the company and team.
Does this mean that you had to communicate a lot with users?
Yes, that was an almost constant part of the job. We entered some markets through the community.
PhpStorm is for PHP developers. How would you describe the main specifics of this market?
The audience of PhpStorm and, for example, WebStorm has a low threshold for entering the programming language for which the IDE is intended. Getting started in these languages is easy and cheap. Learning curve is very different from languages like Java and C #. This increases the responsibility of the company for training in the use of tools. Those who are just beginning do not know much. The same PhpStorm is redundant for them, and you need to teach users to use its capabilities so that the tool brings more joy.
A year ago, you began to engage in new tasks, transferring your affairs in PhpStorm to Anna Lebedeva. What tasks do you solve now?
I work on several projects, they are very different in content.
The first is the various activities of the plugin ecosystem, the plugin repository. The second is the adaptation of marketing strategies and activity to develop new markets in specific markets. Those where you need to adapt marketing and sales strategy. The third project is technical integration and automation related to user support.
Can you give an example of a specific market?
For example, the Asian market has a very great cultural specificity. There is a weak penetration of the English language (see detailed statistics, for example, here), localization is very important. We recently returned from a long business trip, all the speeches there were in local languages using an interpreter. Companies there prefer to buy from local distributors, so resellers have a huge influence on the choice of product users. Also, China has a traditionally high level of piracy.
What do you think is the most significant event in the software development industry over the past two years?
There is no one event, everything happens evolutionarily. Technology is more a product of evolution, not revolution. Even if a new technology appears, it takes time to create real projects on its basis, and it is not always possible on a live product. Interestingly, there has been a long shift towards cloud services. From what is seen in the IoT trend(Internet of Things). There are a huge number of devices, a series of hacks has recently shown how vulnerable this area is. Explosive popularity has brought to this market companies that traditionally produced things and were not familiar with computer security. More and more data leaks occur. But this is not something revolutionary.
What do you think, how will the development market change in the next 5 years?
You can only speculate. There is a feeling that the development market is not changing very quickly. If we are talking about the IDE, then JetBrains is already 17 years old, and forecasts are increasingly heard that the development market will go into the clouds. GitHub and many server products, products for team work can serve as a good example. They say that the IDE will die, but it doesn’t. In the next 5 years, major changes in the way programmers work will not happen. There will be a more intensive transition to cloud tools, in addition to the classic desktop-based IDEs, Cloud IDEs will develop. New languages are emerging: such as Kotlin. But Kotlin is also evolving, it appeared a few years ago and is being improved with each version.
Recently, the IT-related media sphere, and just users of social networks, has been concerned about the widespread dissemination of artificial intelligence. Rumor has it that robots will replace people, and this will happen not only at the checkout counters of supermarkets, but also in intellectual fields. How realistic do you think the prospect of such a replacement is for programmers?
The development market is unlikely to change what robots will be. Artificial intelligence is the topic of the last year, but in reality, the technologies that are used are decades old. It’s just that computing power has increased, and it has become possible to apply these technologies in more areas. Robots exist for a long time, they can replace many things. A study was conducted in Germanyon whether clerks can be replaced with automation. Conclusions: about 51% can be replaced, but it is not necessary, it is not clear in this situation what to do with people. Tests with unconditional income are interesting. True, they did not do this in Switzerland , but they are still testing in Finland and discussing it in the USA . Perhaps unconditional income is where we are heading. But in those markets where cheap labor, people will still be in order.
Here we are already immersing ourselves in the field of social philosophy and moving away directly from IT. Maybe it’s not bad for people to continue working?
If we are talking about countries where labor is exploited, especially for children, then this is hardly good. In economically developed countries, this is not discussed, and the idea of unconditional income just involves the continuation of work by many people, but at the same time it guarantees them a minimum level of income in order to encourage them to change their work to a more suitable one without fear of losing money to rent an apartment or food. After all, a happy and productive employee makes a better and more successful contribution to the economy.
But when you understand that these changes will be with you, it becomes simultaneously uncomfortable and very interesting. In general, changes in the employment market (and unemployment) will entail enormous changes, primarily in education.
I recently listened to Esther Wojcicki, a professor from San Jose, and she talked about an alternative model of education: about what you are not talking about what students do, they themselves need to understand the topic in practice. In general, the paradigm of how children and adults are taught will soon change. This is already happening and even scales. When I was going to move to Munich, I loved GameChangers very much, they attracted really cool experts and thought it would be nice to organize something like that there.
And now I go to CDTM as a free listener - it looks like GameChangers, and there such programs were created at universities back in 1998. These programs are designed to bridge the gap in knowledge that exists between graduates and established professionals and experts.
Since we are talking about expertness. Returning to work at JetBrains, what do you consider to be your strongest knowledge and skills?
Firstly, organization, structuring of what I do. I write a lot. I like to prescribe everything to put it in my head. It also allows you to retrospectively evaluate how well decisions were made.
Secondly, the love of numbers. I will not say that I think well, but I like to do it myself. You and I once discussed, it was easier for me to first calculate some things on my own, so that you (the marketing research team) check the calculations and make your forecasts. This saved a lot of time, because I could not require you to understand the market of PHP development and product specifics just as deeply and seriously, at the same level as myself. I hypothesized, believed, came to you, tested, and it was a super fast strategy.
What motivates you?
Basically, these are internal motivating factors, and, first of all, boredom. It became boring - I went to do something new. At the interview, our HR Director Natasha Chisler asked me what will happen when I get bored at JetBrains? It’s good that the company has the opportunity to switch between projects, so it’s unlikely to become boring at some point. In addition, I am pleased to do good to people. But external factors are not very important for me. There are people who need a positive feedback, without it they dry up - this is not about me.
If you had the opportunity to go back to your time at the university, what would you spend more time on?
I would do the same. As I said, we have many from a specific school and university. I had a different path. If I went for a mat-fur, I would not engage in entrepreneurship. Firstly, I would be kicked out quickly because of truancy. Secondly, from Peterhof ( there are hostels and educational buildings. It takes 40 minutes to get to the terminal metro station in St. Petersburg ) you can’t run into business meetings. I like what happened.
Help: Mikhail Vink has been with JetBrains since 2012. He joined the company as a Product Marketing Manager (PMM) in the PhpStorm team. Now he is engaged in debugging various processes in marketing. He graduated from LETI under the program “Computer Security and Information Protection”. In the past - the owner of his own web studio.
With Misha, we call on Skype, since two and a half years ago he transferred to the Munich office. Hereinafter in italics - approx. interviewer.
Misha, hi. I would like to start from the time when you have not worked in the company, because almost every of our employees has an interesting story about how he got into JetBrains. Will you share yours?
Yes, this is a really interesting story. Many of our employees got into the company, having done the “classic” way: first 239 (Presidential FML No. 239), then mat-fur of St. Petersburg State University. When I just got settled and my profile appeared on the corporate network, many employees thought that I was my brother. He just studied in 239 and on mat-fur. That is, according to the standard course of events, it was logical to assume that it was he. But it was me, who studied in a regular school and further in LETI. It happened.
Can you tell us in more detail how it happened? Perhaps we should return to student days?
Probably even earlier. I began to look for the first job in the 7th grade. At first, he helped in the father’s computer company in the summer, replaced the secretary. Then he decided to find something else, but they didn’t take me anywhere except Oriflame. I did not want to work in Oriflame, because, according to rumors, the young people who were involved in this were often beaten in the process. Once I did an online store for my father and got a laptop on barter. I realized that I could do this. I sent about 30 resumes, did a test task for one company and got the job of a junior PHP developer. A year and a half worked remotely with them, and then went to freelance. There were more opportunities. This freelance flowed smoothly into my first own company.
First one? Were there others?
Yes, in total I had three companies. Everyone was somehow connected with the development. The first then smoothly turned into the third, which was engaged in the development of software, web services and consulting. The second was born from one of the projects to develop advertising automation systems. By the time I was about to leave the business, we confidently occupied several niches related primarily to the real sector of the economy: information products for the sale and sale of auto parts.
Many people do not like working “for uncle” and consider their own business the ultimate dream. How did it happen that you left your business in someone else's business?
In service development, it became boring, because projects and customers were essentially the same. But I didn’t have my own ideas about creating my own real product or the idea of a grocery business. At some point, I met with the founder of the GameChangers project Sergey Dmitriev ( not to be confused with Sergey Dmitriev - the founder and president of JetBrains ). He told me: “We have GameChangers, just for you.” I did not really understand what it was about, but I went for an interview with Veronika Vetrova, and they took me. I was wondering how to do a normal grocery business in IT and not only. I decided that I need to sell my companies and go to a normal place to work.
Do your companies exist now?
Now, no, as I said, the first company was reborn into the third, in which I had a partner. I sold it to my friends, and they integrated and assimilated it into their process. The second company opened under the project, the project ended, the company was closed. Everything that happened at the time of the sale of the third company, became for me an additional argument to why I do not want to have my own business.
Apparently, it was a very busy period of life. What would you recommend to people who want to do business in Russia?
I would give advice to study the materiel and understand how to protect yourself in advance within the framework of the realities that actually exist, especially at the moment when the business grows to more or less significant volumes.
You came to JetBrains as a PMMa, why not a developer?
I do not reach the level of a developer in JetBrains, and a programmer would simply not have taken me.
Isn't it hard to work with programmers?
Easy because it’s close to programming.
What was the hardest part of your first year at JetBrains?
Learning to wait: not everything I want is done quickly. We have not only product teams, but also divisions that solve primarily internal problems (teams of designers, researchers, Internet marketing, etc.). Everyone has their own priorities. And my priorities are not always put in the first place, which is absolutely normal for a large company, but as a representative of a small business it was difficult for me to get used to it.
You have been working PMM for a long time, how would you define the main task of a person working in this position? I know that each in his own way formulates the answer to this question, it is interesting to know yours.
PMM is a person who needs to think about the product business, to be an advocate for product users within the company and team.
Does this mean that you had to communicate a lot with users?
Yes, that was an almost constant part of the job. We entered some markets through the community.
PhpStorm is for PHP developers. How would you describe the main specifics of this market?
The audience of PhpStorm and, for example, WebStorm has a low threshold for entering the programming language for which the IDE is intended. Getting started in these languages is easy and cheap. Learning curve is very different from languages like Java and C #. This increases the responsibility of the company for training in the use of tools. Those who are just beginning do not know much. The same PhpStorm is redundant for them, and you need to teach users to use its capabilities so that the tool brings more joy.
A year ago, you began to engage in new tasks, transferring your affairs in PhpStorm to Anna Lebedeva. What tasks do you solve now?
I work on several projects, they are very different in content.
The first is the various activities of the plugin ecosystem, the plugin repository. The second is the adaptation of marketing strategies and activity to develop new markets in specific markets. Those where you need to adapt marketing and sales strategy. The third project is technical integration and automation related to user support.
Can you give an example of a specific market?
For example, the Asian market has a very great cultural specificity. There is a weak penetration of the English language (see detailed statistics, for example, here), localization is very important. We recently returned from a long business trip, all the speeches there were in local languages using an interpreter. Companies there prefer to buy from local distributors, so resellers have a huge influence on the choice of product users. Also, China has a traditionally high level of piracy.
What do you think is the most significant event in the software development industry over the past two years?
There is no one event, everything happens evolutionarily. Technology is more a product of evolution, not revolution. Even if a new technology appears, it takes time to create real projects on its basis, and it is not always possible on a live product. Interestingly, there has been a long shift towards cloud services. From what is seen in the IoT trend(Internet of Things). There are a huge number of devices, a series of hacks has recently shown how vulnerable this area is. Explosive popularity has brought to this market companies that traditionally produced things and were not familiar with computer security. More and more data leaks occur. But this is not something revolutionary.
What do you think, how will the development market change in the next 5 years?
You can only speculate. There is a feeling that the development market is not changing very quickly. If we are talking about the IDE, then JetBrains is already 17 years old, and forecasts are increasingly heard that the development market will go into the clouds. GitHub and many server products, products for team work can serve as a good example. They say that the IDE will die, but it doesn’t. In the next 5 years, major changes in the way programmers work will not happen. There will be a more intensive transition to cloud tools, in addition to the classic desktop-based IDEs, Cloud IDEs will develop. New languages are emerging: such as Kotlin. But Kotlin is also evolving, it appeared a few years ago and is being improved with each version.
Recently, the IT-related media sphere, and just users of social networks, has been concerned about the widespread dissemination of artificial intelligence. Rumor has it that robots will replace people, and this will happen not only at the checkout counters of supermarkets, but also in intellectual fields. How realistic do you think the prospect of such a replacement is for programmers?
The development market is unlikely to change what robots will be. Artificial intelligence is the topic of the last year, but in reality, the technologies that are used are decades old. It’s just that computing power has increased, and it has become possible to apply these technologies in more areas. Robots exist for a long time, they can replace many things. A study was conducted in Germanyon whether clerks can be replaced with automation. Conclusions: about 51% can be replaced, but it is not necessary, it is not clear in this situation what to do with people. Tests with unconditional income are interesting. True, they did not do this in Switzerland , but they are still testing in Finland and discussing it in the USA . Perhaps unconditional income is where we are heading. But in those markets where cheap labor, people will still be in order.
Here we are already immersing ourselves in the field of social philosophy and moving away directly from IT. Maybe it’s not bad for people to continue working?
If we are talking about countries where labor is exploited, especially for children, then this is hardly good. In economically developed countries, this is not discussed, and the idea of unconditional income just involves the continuation of work by many people, but at the same time it guarantees them a minimum level of income in order to encourage them to change their work to a more suitable one without fear of losing money to rent an apartment or food. After all, a happy and productive employee makes a better and more successful contribution to the economy.
But when you understand that these changes will be with you, it becomes simultaneously uncomfortable and very interesting. In general, changes in the employment market (and unemployment) will entail enormous changes, primarily in education.
I recently listened to Esther Wojcicki, a professor from San Jose, and she talked about an alternative model of education: about what you are not talking about what students do, they themselves need to understand the topic in practice. In general, the paradigm of how children and adults are taught will soon change. This is already happening and even scales. When I was going to move to Munich, I loved GameChangers very much, they attracted really cool experts and thought it would be nice to organize something like that there.
And now I go to CDTM as a free listener - it looks like GameChangers, and there such programs were created at universities back in 1998. These programs are designed to bridge the gap in knowledge that exists between graduates and established professionals and experts.
Since we are talking about expertness. Returning to work at JetBrains, what do you consider to be your strongest knowledge and skills?
Firstly, organization, structuring of what I do. I write a lot. I like to prescribe everything to put it in my head. It also allows you to retrospectively evaluate how well decisions were made.
Secondly, the love of numbers. I will not say that I think well, but I like to do it myself. You and I once discussed, it was easier for me to first calculate some things on my own, so that you (the marketing research team) check the calculations and make your forecasts. This saved a lot of time, because I could not require you to understand the market of PHP development and product specifics just as deeply and seriously, at the same level as myself. I hypothesized, believed, came to you, tested, and it was a super fast strategy.
What motivates you?
Basically, these are internal motivating factors, and, first of all, boredom. It became boring - I went to do something new. At the interview, our HR Director Natasha Chisler asked me what will happen when I get bored at JetBrains? It’s good that the company has the opportunity to switch between projects, so it’s unlikely to become boring at some point. In addition, I am pleased to do good to people. But external factors are not very important for me. There are people who need a positive feedback, without it they dry up - this is not about me.
If you had the opportunity to go back to your time at the university, what would you spend more time on?
I would do the same. As I said, we have many from a specific school and university. I had a different path. If I went for a mat-fur, I would not engage in entrepreneurship. Firstly, I would be kicked out quickly because of truancy. Secondly, from Peterhof ( there are hostels and educational buildings. It takes 40 minutes to get to the terminal metro station in St. Petersburg ) you can’t run into business meetings. I like what happened.