How developers live and work in the Czech Republic: interview with Alexander Sibiryakov from Scrapinghub
We continue a series of interviews with PyCon Russia speakers about Python, their work and hobbies. The first mini-interview we took from one of the developers of the Python language Andrei Svetlov .
The series of posts continues the conversation with the Python-developer from Scrapinghub Alexander Sibiryakov , who has been living in the Czech Republic for 4 years. In what direction will Python develop, what hinders the development of the language, is it possible for a Russian developer to get a job in the Czech Republic, and how the Russian IT industry differs from the Czech one - read about all this under the cut.
- How did you come to development in python?
- Well, it all started back in Yandex. It has been used very often to automate simple operations and wrappers for C ++ applications.
“What is the best and worst part of your work?”
- The best, perhaps, complex engineering problems. And the worst is hard to say. I like my job.
- What do you consider to be your main achievement in life and career at the moment?
- The main achievement in life is a family: three children, a beautiful wife and many relatives. In a career - this, of course, is a job in the Yandex search department. I saw how real professionals work, and I was able to learn a lot from them, acquire important character traits and skills. Now 99% of the job offers for me mean degradation in technical terms. It is very difficult to find a job that suits me.
- In your opinion, in what direction will Python develop in the coming years?
- New syntax constructs will be added and old ones will be improved. For language developers, code readability is a very important priority. The standard library code will also be slightly rewritten to achieve greater performance. It is unlikely that we will get a product that effectively uses multiple processor cores or a graphics processor.
- What, in your opinion, is the most important problem facing the Python developer community now?
- The long-term strategy in the interpreter is largely determined by one person. I am not a supporter of such a development process in OSS. Community members very often do not understand the difference between open source and open development. The code can be opened, and the process is proprietary. In my opinion, this impedes development. In the Java community, the situation is different.
- What tools do you use to organize work (including time planning, workspace organization, etc.)?
- I have a stationary computer with a very large amount of memory and a modern processor running Mac OS X. I use PyCharm for development. You will be surprised, but a sofa is a very important tool in my work. A break of 30 minutes during the day makes me much more productive.
- What information resources could you recommend to colleagues for the development of skills?
- HackerNews , as well as participating in conferences.
- Do you manage to maintain work & life balance? If so, how, if not, do you need it at all?
- With varied success. After the birth of twins, life immediately began to prevail;) It is very important to constantly prioritize tasks and manage your time.
- How long have you lived in the Czech Republic? Why did you move here?
- 4 years. The Czech Republic is very close in spirit to the Russian people and has a good connection with Russia. Also in the Czech Republic there are many Russians and immigrants from the ex-USSR. I constantly travel to Russia and keep in touch, I am not going to refuse citizenship either.
- How is your work organized? Do you go to the office? Are there any differences from Russian companies?
- Scrapinghub is a fully distributed company. I rent an office for myself for two with a familiar developer. At work, I constantly advise Scrapinghub developers, external customers, just people who seek help from Github, and manage the development of Frontera. The rest of the time I’m doing one internal project. At the moment, we are engaged with one student in containerizing Frontera as part of the Google Summer of Code.
- Do you know Czech? How long did you get used to the local life? Are there any features?
- I think that I know the language well. The first year got used to local life. There are many features, ranging from mentality to products. But all these are trifles in comparison with Finland or the USA. I managed to work in two Czech companies. In my opinion, in Russia, the IT industry as a whole has a lot more life.
- Is it possible for a Russian developer to get a job in a Czech company? Can you give some advice?
- It is possible, but you must be a professional with higher education or already have permission to stay in the Czech Republic. If you want engineering growth, it is better to choose a different country. And if you are interested in the standard of living, then the Czech Republic is very interesting. In the Czech Republic, the balance of income and expenses is one of the best in Europe. You can talk with Alexander personally, ask your questions on July 3-4 at the conference
PyCon Russia , which will be held near Moscow.
Thanks to our sponsors: General sponsor - Positive Technologies company , Gold sponsor - JetBrains company , Silver sponsor - Rambler & Co company , Bronze sponsor - Ostrovok.ru company .
The series of posts continues the conversation with the Python-developer from Scrapinghub Alexander Sibiryakov , who has been living in the Czech Republic for 4 years. In what direction will Python develop, what hinders the development of the language, is it possible for a Russian developer to get a job in the Czech Republic, and how the Russian IT industry differs from the Czech one - read about all this under the cut.
Alexander's performance at PyCon-2015
- How did you come to development in python?
- Well, it all started back in Yandex. It has been used very often to automate simple operations and wrappers for C ++ applications.
“What is the best and worst part of your work?”
- The best, perhaps, complex engineering problems. And the worst is hard to say. I like my job.
- What do you consider to be your main achievement in life and career at the moment?
- The main achievement in life is a family: three children, a beautiful wife and many relatives. In a career - this, of course, is a job in the Yandex search department. I saw how real professionals work, and I was able to learn a lot from them, acquire important character traits and skills. Now 99% of the job offers for me mean degradation in technical terms. It is very difficult to find a job that suits me.
- In your opinion, in what direction will Python develop in the coming years?
- New syntax constructs will be added and old ones will be improved. For language developers, code readability is a very important priority. The standard library code will also be slightly rewritten to achieve greater performance. It is unlikely that we will get a product that effectively uses multiple processor cores or a graphics processor.
- What, in your opinion, is the most important problem facing the Python developer community now?
- The long-term strategy in the interpreter is largely determined by one person. I am not a supporter of such a development process in OSS. Community members very often do not understand the difference between open source and open development. The code can be opened, and the process is proprietary. In my opinion, this impedes development. In the Java community, the situation is different.
- What tools do you use to organize work (including time planning, workspace organization, etc.)?
- I have a stationary computer with a very large amount of memory and a modern processor running Mac OS X. I use PyCharm for development. You will be surprised, but a sofa is a very important tool in my work. A break of 30 minutes during the day makes me much more productive.
- What information resources could you recommend to colleagues for the development of skills?
- HackerNews , as well as participating in conferences.
- Do you manage to maintain work & life balance? If so, how, if not, do you need it at all?
- With varied success. After the birth of twins, life immediately began to prevail;) It is very important to constantly prioritize tasks and manage your time.
- How long have you lived in the Czech Republic? Why did you move here?
- 4 years. The Czech Republic is very close in spirit to the Russian people and has a good connection with Russia. Also in the Czech Republic there are many Russians and immigrants from the ex-USSR. I constantly travel to Russia and keep in touch, I am not going to refuse citizenship either.
- How is your work organized? Do you go to the office? Are there any differences from Russian companies?
- Scrapinghub is a fully distributed company. I rent an office for myself for two with a familiar developer. At work, I constantly advise Scrapinghub developers, external customers, just people who seek help from Github, and manage the development of Frontera. The rest of the time I’m doing one internal project. At the moment, we are engaged with one student in containerizing Frontera as part of the Google Summer of Code.
- Do you know Czech? How long did you get used to the local life? Are there any features?
- I think that I know the language well. The first year got used to local life. There are many features, ranging from mentality to products. But all these are trifles in comparison with Finland or the USA. I managed to work in two Czech companies. In my opinion, in Russia, the IT industry as a whole has a lot more life.
- Is it possible for a Russian developer to get a job in a Czech company? Can you give some advice?
- It is possible, but you must be a professional with higher education or already have permission to stay in the Czech Republic. If you want engineering growth, it is better to choose a different country. And if you are interested in the standard of living, then the Czech Republic is very interesting. In the Czech Republic, the balance of income and expenses is one of the best in Europe. You can talk with Alexander personally, ask your questions on July 3-4 at the conference
PyCon Russia , which will be held near Moscow.
Thanks to our sponsors: General sponsor - Positive Technologies company , Gold sponsor - JetBrains company , Silver sponsor - Rambler & Co company , Bronze sponsor - Ostrovok.ru company .