Artemy, your success story is astounding.

Many (including in Kirov) believe that

they will never achieve anything without connections, much less get into large
foreign

companies. So I want to dispel these myths. Let's start from the beginning: at what
time did you become interested in the IT industry? What is this area that captured

you so much?

I became interested in IT-industry issues one way or another with the acquisition
of the first computer in the 7th grade. Immediately began to try to write programs

on Basic, while the other guys rested and played. In the 10th and 11th classes I
mastered Pascal, then - Visual Basic and Delphi. I wrote all this on paper, then I

came to a friend to reprint already on a normal computer, to debug the code. I

really enjoyed programming, especially writing simple step-by-step strategies and

implementing the semblance of artificial intelligence. The IT industry attracted me

because it was something unusual, new and very promising.

After graduation, everyone faces a choice: where to go to learn, what to become.

Are you also faced with this?

At school, my twin brother Roman and friends were fond of different areas -
computers, astronomy, chemistry, physics and others. For a very long time, we both
dreamed

of becoming paleontologists and wanted to move in this direction, but in the 10th
grade we finally made the decision to go in the direction of training for
engineers.

There were many options, but there was no financial opportunity. After some
analysis, we made a decision to enter the Vyatka State University at the Faculty of

Chemistry. The silver medal at school helped me to enter the most prestigious
specialty of the faculty - biotechnology.

Did you study hard at VyatGU? Is it possible to say that the knowledge that was
provided there was insufficient for development in this area (maybe technologies

changed much faster than teachers mastered them, or only basic knowledge was
given)?

The first month was quite difficult for me, but then I quickly adapted, so my
studies went easy. Teachers demanded a lot from us, asked a lot of homework. It
happened

that in university buildings I spent the whole day from 8 am to 9 pm, often sat in
libraries at weekends. The knowledge we were given was very good, I still remember

many disciplines very well and, as an example, I can easily find derivatives and
integrals of complex functions, derive various equations. I never tried to memorize

complex equations in the forehead, I always deduced them. He helped many other
people a lot, every day he dealt with tasks and questions with classmates and
friends,
and later with tutoring clients. As a result - he graduated from the university
with a red diploma.

While studying at the university I actively pumped the IT direction: I studied

Linux, additional programming languages - Perl, PHP, C / C ++. Here I would like to
say

a special thank you to Andrei Elsukov and Nikolai Berdnikov - they were my mentors.

After graduating from the first specialty, I started working at the Biochemical
Plant, but soon I went to work at Information Systems as a software engineer, from

where I had already transferred to Kirovskoye RDU as a system administrator of a

web-site.

Soon I entered the second higher education degree in “Computing Machines”, but I
did not have time to finish due to moving to Kazan. Honestly, in the second
specialty

I was very boring to study. I am very glad that I graduated from Biotechnology,
where I was set at the right pace of self-study.

What moment was the turning point, and you decided to change the region?

In the Kirov RDU, I worked for about 5 years. At first I was very interested in
view of the wide profile of work - various Linux-systems, Windows-servers, Cisco

equipment, anti-virus systems (Kaspersky, Trend Micro), but after a while I figured
out all the subtleties, and I got bored. Then I began to think about changing jobs,

passed several interviews in Kirov, but the companies did not suit me.

The turning point was the moment when my friend Andrei Bobrov was interviewed and
got a job at ICL in a division that provides IT services to foreign customers.
Andrey

advised the HR company of this company to interview me, and after 2 weeks (in 2010)
I started working in Kazan as a leading specialist.

Of course, it may seem ridiculous, but still: Did you feel the difference between
the Kirov region and Tatarstan? How did they treat young professionals? How long
have

you lived in Kazan?

I felt the difference between cities, but it was nothing compared to the
difference between the companies. The ICL had a very warm and friendly atmosphere,
a young

team. The company has been well built processes for the adaptation of new
employees. I immediately felt those moments that the IT direction was profile for
the

company, that everyone spoke the same language, which could not but rejoice.

It sounds ridiculous now, but they initially took me to work as the Windows
administrator, and a month later they transferred me to Unix, to the development
and

support team of a large car.

felt the difference between cities, but it was nothing compared to the difference
between the companies. The ICL had a very warm and friendly atmosphere, a young

team. The company has been well built processes for the adaptation of new
employees. I immediately felt those moments that the IT direction was profile for
the

company, that everyone spoke the same language, which could not but rejoice.

It sounds funny now, but they initially took me to work as a Windows administrator,
and a month later they transferred me to Unix, to the development and support team

of a major automaker in Europe. It was a crucial turning point in my career, at

work on which I gained a ton of new skills in a short time. After this project,
there

were a lot of others - building a public cloud ICL Cloud, migration of data centers
of logistics companies, and so on. In Kazan, he lived until his departure to the

United States.

Did someone suggest to you, or did you yourself decide that you need to take
various courses to improve the skills of the innovative direction? How much time
did you

spend on these courses?

At that time, the recognized ICL expert on Linux / Unix direction was Roman
Gorshunov. It was he who suggested to me the Red Hat training and certification
program. I

studied the materials on this program, correlated them with my goals and quickly
decided that this was exactly what was needed. A few months later (in December
2010),

I passed my first exam and received the first certification status - Red Hat
Certified Technician.

From 2011 to 2014 I worked for 2-4 hours every day, including weekends. He came
home from work around 8:30 pm, then a quick dinner, and until midnight or a little
more

sat and worked. I studied all questions very carefully, studied the material to the
smallest detail.

How difficult was the first year in a foreign country?

The first time I flew several times on business trips to different cities -
Austin, Chicago, Phoenix, Denver. In parallel, combined business tasks with travel.
I

really liked the country at once. After some time, in February 2017, he moved with
his family, which adapted very quickly.

It was difficult for the first two weeks while we were looking for an apartment and
buying furniture. Then everything became much easier. It should be noted that the
move was painless thanks to Denis Zuev, who helped me a lot. Denis already at that
time lived for several years in the United States.

How much does Russia differ from the United States in terms of technology and
living standards? Is it possible to call these spheres completely different?

Everyday life is quite different. Here, it seems to me, many processes are devoid
of excessive bureaucracy and paperwork, which is in Russia. For example, the whole

process of obtaining a driver's license took me two days. On the first day I passed
the written test. In the second, I passed the driving test and got a driver's

license. Another example is car purchase. I came to the auto show - an hour later I
left in a new car. I have never seen queues or rude government employees here.

From the perspective of the IT-industry, the difference is even more noticeable.
Here automation and “clouds” are ubiquitous. Local companies quickly begin to test
new

IT products, and then quickly introduce them into production processes. In Russia,
for a long time I had to tell customers what “clouds”, “containers”, etc., are,

since almost no one knows about the updates.

In the USA, almost all companies already have most of their services in public
“clouds” (AWS, Azure, GCE) or in private ones based on OpenStack. Large companies
are

beginning to abandon branded iron in favor of cheaper options, and issues of

resiliency and scaling decide a level higher. The abbreviations SDN / NFV are not
just

marketing marketing, but technologies actually used in production. Ceph / Gluster

stores production critical data for the company. It seems to me that the IT field
in

Russia is several years behind the United States.

I told you about the Kirov IT-specialists. They are very inspired by your career.
We noted that it is now very difficult to find a good specialist in this area. For

example, one company is looking for a developer with knowledge of FHIR. Like, agree
to any salary, as long as the specialist was intelligent. In your opinion, why is

it so hard to find a good specialist here?

Specialists in Russia are and will be, but due to the outflow of highly qualified
personnel to other countries they are difficult to find. High-level specialists
need

appropriate tasks and remuneration. If this or that will not happen, then the
question of migration will inevitably arise.

I have met the publication that the largest corporations are increasingly choosing
employees working from home. How relevant is this for an IT specialist? How common

is it in the USA?
 Work from home is found in the United States and in Russia. It all depends on the
company and business approaches. My personal opinion is this: beginners should

necessarily work in the office, but high-level specialists with the proper level of
self-motivation should be given a choice.

Before leaving for the USA, I worked on projects from home. In the US, I also work
from home now. Thanks to the development of online communication tools this has

become possible.

Engaged mainly in publicly available materials. Sometimes the company paid me

official courses, from which I basically needed only training materials. In total,
I went

to 6 official Red Hat courses. Most of them took place in India (Kochi, Kerala).
Some courses are available in Russia.

Official course materials help a lot, but I just want to point out that for all Red
Hat exams, you can prepare for publicly available materials, which I used to do.

Now I prefer to buy Red Hat Learning Subscription, which includes all Red Hat
courses and 5-7 exams. This subscription is worth $ 3510 / year for Russia.

When you were invited to America, what did you think about first? Did you quickly
agree to such a proposal?

Already at the age of 25, I firmly decided for myself that I wanted to move only
to 2 countries of the world - either to the USA or to Australia. For me, the
climate

of the country is very important. Before receiving an offer in the USA, I had many
invitations to well-known companies in Europe, which I declined. Fundamentally did

not want to live there.

On the proposal to develop the direction of cloud technologies and automation in

the United States from Bell Integrator, I did not agree quickly. The process took
more

than a year. My first thoughts were thoughts about how this family would perceive
it. Well, I immediately began to think about how I could drag my friends to work in

the states.

And how long is your working day? What does your workplace look like? Is it filled
with all things at once or perfectly clean?

The duration and schedule of the working day is highly dependent on the season.
Autumn and winter months - time hard work. In summer and spring I try to do more

sports, travel and relax.

Now I usually wake up at 6:30 in the morning. From 7 am I start calls from students
and friends. From 8 to 9 in the morning I reply to work and personal mail. At 9 - a

light breakfast. And then until about 18 o'clock I deal with work issues with a
short lunch break. Next - a quick dinner, a little time with the family, and again
sit

down at the computer, already for self-study. Doing until about 10 pm.

In the summer I try to finish all the tasks for work already around 5 pm, and then
with my family we go to the mountains, swim in the pool. When the sun sets, I start

working again.

My workplace is clean. In addition to two laptops and monitors, there is nothing on

it. Notebook and pen rarely appear, but I try to clean it immediately. For papers

and other office things there is an additional table.

There is an opinion that Russian IT experts are the best specialists. Do you agree
with this?

I communicate with a large number of large companies. The vast majority of

companies claim that the best specialists come to them from Eastern Europe, Russia
and

India. For the most part, this does not depend on the country, but on the person
himself, his self-motivation and approaches to work. In the US, there are a lot of

Russian-speaking specialists in the IT industry, but an order of magnitude more

specialists from India.

How do you think, if you didn’t decide to move from Kirov to Tatarstan, would you
be able to achieve something on Vyatka (honestly)?

It is difficult to speak in a probabilistic form. I think in Kirov I would not

have been able to get the relevant experience. For development, we need relevant

projects, international experience. There are not so many of them in Kirov, and
they are all on the wrong scale. In Tatarstan, there are more companies working
with

foreign companies, and much more opportunities to participate in large-scale

projects.

What is missing from the Kirov region so as not to lose such specialists as you?

As I have already noted, the region lacks projects of the appropriate scale, the
ability to work with international companies. Many IT specialists are trained in

Kirov, but certain conditions are needed that will facilitate their self-
realization. The process of becoming an expert usually takes 7-10 years, and all
this time it

is required to solve new problems, learn new things, and develop.

What is the most important achievement for you? What are the further goals? Maybe
there is some plan for further development?

The most important professional achievement for me is the launch of a well-known

product on Internet TV in the USA - CenturyLink Stream, where I worked as an
architect for a solution together with Denis Zuev and Dmitry Mostovshchikov, well-
known in their circles. We had to connect hundreds of different IT components into
a

single complete solution, ensure fault-tolerant operation of services at all

levels, and achieve high performance indicators. It is noteworthy that during the

implementation of the project we applied a series of innovative and innovative

solutions at that time, which, among other things, allowed the company to save
about $

25-30 million. For techies I bring a list of well-known technologies (without

specialized video processing software) that we dealt with every day: Ansible,
SaltStack,

Juju, OpenStack, OpenShift / kubernetes / docker, Calico Networking, Ceph, Gluster,

Pacemaker, Juniper, A10 , RHEL / CentOS, Ubuntu, DRBD, EMC, Dell, SuperMicro,

FreeBSD, nginx.

One of the easily measured achievements are achievements in the field of technical
certification of Red Hat. Today, my status — Red Hat Certified Architect Level XVII

is the highest in the world. Thanks to the achievements in this area, specialists
who work in world-famous companies — Red Hat, Canonical, AT & T, Google, IBM, etc.

come to me for consultation. This greatly helps to be “toned”.

From the plans for the future in order of priority - the development of programming
skills Python, writing books to share their experience with other professionals,

the top AWS certification. Depending on the load on projects, one of the goals will
probably be top certification (s) for Cisco / Juniper networking technologies -

CCIE / JNCIE.

I wonder what are you writing books about?

Mainly in my articles and publications I share my experience in terms of building

complex information systems, using automation in practice. Recently, colleagues

wrote a book on automation Ansible. We have begun work on a book about containers
and their means of orchestration.

Do you often come to Kirov / Kazan? Do not miss Russia?

I have not come to Russia since the move. I am constantly in touch with family and
friends via skype. Friends and brother often fly to me. We travel here together.

Therefore, do not be bored.

Only month
Do you have free time? If so, what do you like to do? Maybe there is some kind of
hobby (for example, playing computer games, reading, traveling)?

In winter, I have no free time. Every 2-3 weeks on Saturdays we go to the mountains
to hot springs. If guests come, then I relax with them and travel.
I have a lot of hobbies. Previously, I really liked ballroom dancing, even in the
absence of musical ear. He was engaged in photography, bred tarantulas, studied

astronomy, played Counter-Strike and Warcraft III. My brother and friends traveled
extensively in Russia, India, Sri Lanka and Tanzania. Climbed to Kilimanjaro. Many

times visited the Southern Urals.

Is there a recipe for success? Probably, some naturally inherent abilities will
still not be allowed to climb so high. Or is it possible to argue with genes?

Genes have nothing to do with it. Of course, the nature of us all rewarded with
different abilities, but not these abilities determine success. Behind every story
of

a successful person are years of intensive work. The main features of a successful
person are diligence and perseverance in achieving their goals. If you manage to

learn something new every day and then put it into practice, this is one step to
success. Further, if you can turn your hobby into your career, as I did, it can
also

motivate you a lot.

What can you advise Kirovsk people?

It is important here and right now to break away from the TV and the sofa and go
to work on yourself, work every day, every evening and every morning, set ambitious

goals for yourself and gradually implement them. Your success depends on the
ability to win natural laziness!