Andrei Ramaniuk is the ITS software development director and one of the founders of this business. This summer, he returned from California, where he worked for three years as a part of Netgear, one of the main customers of the Belarusian company. The relocation was conceived to intensify work with the American partner. Andrey told Dev.by about his experience.
“By the time the visa arrived, we no longer wanted to go.”
ITS Partner has 4–5 large customers in California, and our goal is to work with them on a long-term basis. In 2012, we restructured the business, I left as a shareholder and received an offer from our partner, Netgear, to work from California.
The agreement was that I continue to work with the Belarusian guys from Netgear’s side. The idea of relocation is to feel from the inside the expectations of our customer from the team in Minsk and, accordingly, pull up our guys so that they can efficiently work with the American team.
Three years passed from the offer to the actual trip. It turned out to be not so easy to open a work visa. When an American company invites a foreigner to work on an H1 visa, the applicants participate in a selection that is limited by a quota. In 2013, when I submitted my application, the quota was 60 thousand visas, and there were over 120 thousand applications from employers.
The American migration agency claims that the selection is random, like a lottery. But there is a suspicion that the questionnaires are reviewed, and, perhaps, not so much the questionnaires themselves as the applicant companies. In my experience, small companies and startups are more likely to receive approval (where the share of positive decisions tends to be 100 %). Large corporations, including Netgear, are not a priority; their chances are perhaps even less than 50 %.
In my case, the visa process took about 3 years. After I failed to obtain an H1 visa, we launched Plan B — an L1 visa, which is intended for employees who are transferred between the offices of the same company in different countries.
Netgear registered me as an employee of its office in Ireland, and I worked remotely from Minsk for a year while being registered in Ireland. And then Netgear’s lawyers prepared a whole package of documents for L1 — it is much more voluminous than the one for H1, but this type of visa is not quoted. And it finally worked.
When the approval came by the summer of 2015, I had already forgotten that we were going to the USA. To be honest, I didn’t even want to go anymore. In 2014, my wife and I had a child, and this added uncertainty to our situation.
At the family council, we decided that we must go. For me, this is an experience of working in a Western company, and for my wife, this is a good maternity leave: the sun is all year round, no need to buy warm clothes for the child. So in November 2015, we moved to Santa Clara, a small town near San Jose, where Netgear Corporation is located.
“There is a huge difference between the income of an average American and a developer in the Valley.”
Our way was different from the traditional way of migrants, who immediately start saving for a house and are drawn into the carousel of loans. We had no intention of staying in America, so our program was half tourist: We lived in a beautiful district next to my work, and traveled a lot.
We drove California far and wide, traveled to neighboring states, to the east coast, to New York, three times flew to Hawaii — we liked it there so much that we could not deny ourselves this pleasure. Wineries, national parks — forests, waterfalls, mountains. We spent most of our free time enjoying the beautiful nature.
A three-room apartment (two bedrooms and a living room) in a low-rise district with beautiful lawns, barbecue facilities, and swimming pools costs about three thousand USD a month. I could walk to the office. I could afford to live next to my work because I didn’t have to think about which school to send my child to.
However, the last year our son went to an American-Russian kindergarten. My wife and I chose it for quite a long time. We were looking for one in which there would be groups of children organized by age, daily routine, meals, and developmental programs.
The kindergarten cost $ 1,800 a month. It’s expensive even by American standards. But cheaper kindergartens did not meet our requirements. For example, there are institutions in which a child is simply looked after, but not engaged with. There are places where they don’t provide meals: you have to bring food with you.
For most Americans, these are inconceivable prices. Indeed, by the standards of an average US citizen, developers in Silicon Valley are making crazy money. For example, a developer’s usual salary before taxes is about $ 140,000. And there are salaries of $ 200 thousand, $ 300 thousand, and $ 400 thousand.
An average American family receives $ 60 thousand a year for two people, net of tax — $ 50 thousand are left. The gap with the Valley is enormous.
“At the doctor’s office, you cannot remember the names of illnesses and symptoms — that’s awful!”
At first, I was pretty comfortable at Netgear as I continued to work on the same American project as I did at home with the same team of engineers and managers.
However, the comfort did not last long. A month later, everything began to change: the manager, with whom I had been working for five years, quit, movements began, which significantly changed the project and team structure. Changes happened unexpectedly, decisions were made without my participation, and this gave rise to anxiety: it seemed that there might be no work for me at any moment, and I would have to go back.
Initially, the meaning of my relocation was the development of the Belarusian team. Therefore, it was unacceptable for me to get into a team that did not somehow come in contact with the Minsk team.
But in the end, this situation helped me quickly advance from an engineering position to a manager one (Senior Project Engineering Manager) so that I had more opportunities to develop the Belarusian direction. Looking ahead, I will say that I was never promoted to director. Director is a responsible position, and I was not going to stay in the USA for a long time; therefore, there was no point in promoting me very high.
In Minsk, I completed an MBA in English at the School of Business and Management of Technologies of the Belarusian State University and thought that I was going to the United States with good English. In California, it turned out that my English was kids’ stuff.
With the technical language, things were better, I knew the terminology, but everyday things went badly. With doctors — it was awful. You do not remember the names of diseases, body parts, symptoms, and therefore you cannot explain your problem.
I had to level up my English. I felt that I could not participate on par with native speakers in working discussions. It was difficult to deal with this problem: I needed communication experience, and there were few native speakers in the working environment.
“A top manager could walk past you with a poker face.”
Netgear consists 60 % of Indians, 30 % of Chinese, and only 5–10 % of Americans and Europeans.
Top management communicates with employees extremely reluctantly: they have a clear hierarchy in relations, top management forms a caste in which other employees are not allowed. A vice president level manager might walk by with a porker face and not even turn in your direction, as if you don’t exist. Maybe it’s not a problem for them, but it caught my eye. Seeing another manager, he immediately changes: “Hello, dude, how are you?!”
The hierarchy is as follows: manager, senior manager, director, senior director. And everyone starts to go about with heads in the air from the director level.
I do not exclude that the tops have adapted to the idea of Asian employees of how the boss should behave: maybe Asians would be uncomfortable if the vice president greeted them — I do not exclude it. But to be honest, the tops behaved this way with everyone.
In our company, I try to pursue a different policy: if I meet a junior, engineer, or deputy director, I equally wish everyone a good day.
But what I like about American society is that they can openly discuss such issues without the risk of being kicked in the back.
“The chief does not want to see you, and you send them a request.”
Closed groups are a characteristic element of Western society. People are grouped into clubs, closed groups, which you need to join. If you don’t get there, you have no status. If you have no status, you are nobody, you have no privileges, everybody ignores you, and nobody discusses important things with you. They may not even discuss project issues with you if you are not in a group. It really disturbs work.
It is a disease that holds back the corporations’ development. To avoid personal contact, they try to shift work to the process level, add more managers, tighten screws, and bureaucratize relationships even more.
The reason why Salesforce is thriving is that they are engaged in process automation. The chief does not want to see you, and in order not to meet him, you send him a request. In the system, the request has a certain status, and it must be considered. Corporations move towards processes because this is a certain antidote to internal issues between managers and teams.
Besides hierarchical problems, there are problems of interaction between different ethnic groups. For example, a department consisting of Indians only and a department consisting of Chinese only hardly communicate with each other, let alone personal contacts — they are avoided. Processes slightly mitigate this problem.
When there is no process, everything turns into chaos. Let’s say you need to release a feature. One team, the Indians, is responsible for the infrastructure, and another, the Chinese, is responsible for testing. Engineers can be Americans or Belarusians. When there is no process, the manager sends millions of letters to departments, and departments do not respond. It’s good if they are in the same office — then you go to them in person. If you don’t find them, you start calling by phone. Everything is going extremely slowly, and you have to pull everyone up so that they do their part of the work. Ignore persists until the issue becomes urgent.
I’m not sure if this is true for the entire Silicon Valley, but I have noticed similar problems in several companies. There were good examples, though. When I talked to the guys at Dropbox, it seemed to me that they had a more dynamic team, and they were faster to unite and resolve issues. But most of their team are Americans.
“Chinese New Year is a big holiday.”
Working at Netgear showed me the American corporate relations ethics: who can do what, where to interfere, and where not to. These things are not obvious to those here.
I took the hierarchical culture critically, but I liked something in the corporate traditions: despite the internal limitations, here you still feel that you are a part of one team.
Companies are trying to unite employees through informal events. They have fun lunches almost every month. For example, a Mexican catering service comes to the office, and everyone is invited to the lawn: “Guys, let’s try guacamole, tacos, and have some fun with Mexican music.” Everyone goes out, takes treats, and socializes.
In addition, national holidays are celebrated: the main Jewish, Indian once, and of course, American Thanksgiving and Christmas. Chinese New Year is a big holiday. There are also Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. The latter is celebrated in our company on a large scale because the director’s name is Patrick.
“They are more likely to give money than not.”
There is a huge Russian-speaking community in the Valley: Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians, and Lithuanians. This is both good and bad. Good, because there is always someone to talk to, go on a visit or have a picnic. Bad, because this community limits your social circle, and you don’t see Americans.
To not be limited by the community and my working group, I began to implement my old dream — I went to Stanford courses. Stanford University has a postgraduate program that includes a wide range of courses. Many take them online, but I was in California, 20 minutes away from Stanford by car, and I signed up for face-to-face classroom courses.
For a year and a half, I completed several courses: leadership, innovation, and finance and investment. The financial course was taught by a consultant of an investment fund in Palo Alto: He invited his colleagues from various accelerators and incubators, and they talked about the stages of business development and financing, about who and how startups should ask for money, who would give it and who would not.
The moral of these meetings was as follows: They are more likely to give money than not, the main thing is to find the right entrance. Most of those who received the money just found the right person. And even if you are denied in one place, this does not mean that you are denied. There will be 10 more places where money will be given.
Actually, there is a lot of money. There is so much money in Silicon Valley that they don’t know what to do with it. A huge number of investment funds are concentrated there, accumulating about 100 billion USD that have not been invested yet.
And this does not include large corporations, all these Facebooks, Oracles, Googles, and Apples: Each of them has huge capital in the corporate account. They can no longer invest this money in themselves — they are already too fat; therefore, they are looking for a place to invest it outside. As a result, they start buying up everything: startups, small companies, and big ones. Ten billion? Yes, please — they are happy to find a way to place this money.
How can Belarusians benefit from this? This is what I am going to talk about. Previously, this money was only available to Americans and, to a lesser extent, Europeans. But over the past 10 years, guys from India and China have been actively moving there.
Investment funds see that the Valley is very small, you can’t seat everyone there, but there is a lot of money. Therefore, investments are going to India and China. A large number of startups have sprung up with Indian and Chinese CEOs. Many managers and consultants of investment funds and accelerators are active in the Asian markets.
At Stanford, we had a visit by Rick Rasmussen, community coordinator for the development of accelerators and incubators in the Valley. He says that he now spends most of his time outside California: He travels to Asia, is interested in Eastern Europe. I asked him about Minsk. He replied: “Yes, I was at Imaguru. The guys are on the right way, you will succeed, but you have to work hard.”
Judging by Rasmussen’s activity, he is now more interested in Ukraine. But I hope people like him will come to Belarus and help mobilize the startup movement.
“Baby carrot is a real business opportunity for our farmers.”
After talking with American teachers, practicing businessmen, and consultants, I confirmed my guesses that the opportunities for Belarusians are great. We have excellent chances to enter this market, but the mentality gets in the way: we have little idea of what a real product should be like.
Our guys focus on the technical features of a software product, while not always understanding how this product will solve the client’s problem. We are used to solving some part of the problem like construction crews during repair: one puts up the wallpaper, the other hollows the walls. As a result, the repair becomes a big headache for the customer.
And successful products are those that find the client’s need for a service and solve it end-to-end.
Sometimes we don’t motivate ourselves to search for a problem, we see: here is an interesting technology, for example, artificial intelligence, now we will set a couple of neural networks, and they will “generate” something for us. Ok, they generated it, but why is this solution interesting to customers, why is it better than others?
In California, I saw people find and solve problems end-to-end. Even at Netgear, despite the disagreements between the teams, I saw an effort to help the team detect the problem and solve it comprehensively. In everyday American life, you see this trend at every turn.
For example, there is a need: I want to take coffee for a picnic. You can make coffee at home and pour it into a thermos, but is will be not enough. You can buy 10 cups at the cafe and balance with them on the way from the counter to the lawn. Starbucks offers the following solution: freshly brewed coffee is poured into a sealed 1-gallon (about 3.8 liters) carton with a double-wall handle (to keep warm) and a valve. In addition, cups are given out, everything costs about 20 USD.
You go to the ocean and take a packet of coffee with you. It is a sheer pleasure to drink it on the shore. You throw away the cardboard package afterward.
Here’s another idea, spotted from the USA: baby carrot — a finger-size carrot. I heard that it is made from substandard carrots: it was cut, given a nice cylindrical shape, and packaged in 200-gram packets. A packet costs 1 USD — not expensive or cheap, but I would rather crunch carrots instead of chips. It seems to me that this is a real business opportunity for our farmers, they only need a cutting line.
In the high-tech business, Amazon provides a good example of an end-to-end solution. It completely solved the problem of delivering goods from sellers to buyers, assuming the associated risks. As a result, the US retail industry has changed dramatically: e-commerce started replacing traditional shopping malls.
“I stand huddled, and the American in front of me is open, he has an advantage.”
At Stanford, I had another awesome course that everyone is crazy about — Story Telling. This is a business course that proclaims that a story is the most effective way to convey information to listeners. It teaches the general structure of a story, how it differs from a lecture, and how to fit a story into three minutes.
For me, this course became a serious challenge: mostly native speakers came there, and in order to be on the same level as them, a high level of English was required. I stumbled, trying to find the right words. Later I realized that a story can be told without even decorating it with beautiful phrases.
You need vocabulary, of course, but if it is not enough, it’s ok. The main thing is how you behave, how you convey your thoughts, whether you put your confidence and determination into them. In addition to the flow of information, an aura should emanate from you. This is the basis of their communication.
We, on the contrary, hide: God forbid, someone will feel what is inside us. And, of course, when I stand huddled and the American is open in front of me, he has an advantage over me. It is important to learn to open yourself up to them, to communicate with them in an American way, even when words are not enough.
Most Americans have excellent communication skills, they speak fluently on any topic, they can smooth-talk anyone. Even without knowing the topic deeply, an American presents it with such a confident look that you involuntarily believe them. And you think that this is the coolest expert. We have the opposite: a guy is smart, a pro in his field, but he cannot cobble together a couple of words.
The ability to communicate from a leadership position is the most valuable luggage I have brought back from California. It helps me a lot in my work. Now at meetings, as an American manager, I can say: “Guys, I know that we need to do this thing like this.” In fact, team members believe what their chief believes. Faith is contagious.
The ability to communicate is very important for attracting investment. Here is a manager in an investment fund, they have a plan that for a certain period it is necessary to distribute a certain amount. If they do not do this, they will lose their bonus. “Hey John, what is the hell? Why haven’t you invested yet?” Therefore, John will give money to anyone who is at least minimal trustworthy.
The investor does not have the slightest opportunity to test your idea, whether you are telling the truth or not. In fact, they only trust whether you believe in your idea.
“I believe this will pay off.”
We were leaving with the expectation that three years would be enough. And so it happened. The company in Belarus began to grow rapidly, it was necessary to strengthen the management, move to a new level of processes. Here my new experience proved appropriate. I could no longer afford to remain a manager of only one American project. So, this summer we returned to Minsk.
I am going to apply the experience gained in California not only in our company but also outside it. My mission here is to help Belarusians compensate for the lack of information on how to make an end-to-end product. In parallel with my work at ITS Partner, I am going to help startups, I dream of bringing new high-profile projects to the California level, making them a serious and stable business.
In the future, I see myself as an investor, mentor, and consultant — a person who will help our guys find millions of investment resources.
The Belarusians have great opportunities, we can easily compete in the American market: we have smart people, and the whole industry is tailored to supply the IT industry with good specialists. Now a critical mass of specialists is accumulating in the country, and I believe that as soon as it is reached, it will pay off. And at this moment I want to be in Belarus.
Source: dev.by