≡ #born_to_be_nerd — Meet Volodymyr Vrublevskyi

#born_to_be_nerd is one of our topics where we introduce you to the creators of NERDZ LAB.

Article content:

What three words do you associate with NERDZ LAB?
What are you proud of during your time working at NERDZ LAB?
Tell us some cool insights and features of working with you (in PM)
What inspires you in your work?
What advice can you give to delivery managers who are just starting their careers?
How do you assess the progress of the IT industry in the next 10 years?
What were the challenges at work?
Do you have enough free time for your hobbies? How do you spend your free time?
What are some of your favorite movies, music, and books?

What three words do you associate with NERDZ LAB?

The main three words for me are trust, friendship, and opportunities. So those values apply to both our partners, that we have, like our clients or new leads we get. It’s also applicable to our employees and our internal team. So we provide these values for both sides and, in that way, make everyone happy. As I said, my story with NERDZ LAB started as a freelancer. I also worked in NERDZ LAB at the very beginning as an IOS developer. Then I found out that it’s also interesting to have a deep connection and conversation with the stakeholders of our projects.

As a result, I tried to be more included in all of those discussions and make some optimizations for the projects. And as a result, at some point, I understood that coding is interesting and fun. Still, when I participate more in the product, let’s call it product development, and participate more in the discussion with the client, I can provide more value to both the project and the company. So I tried to become, let’s call the delivery manager, but a technical one.

I was managing just a small team and small projects because, at that point, the company was also relatively smaller than it is now. I can see right now that was the right decision and the right choice because as time went by, I was trying to find out the best ways to optimize the work from both the technical and the management perspectives. So, I was taking part in the project as the project manager as well as the delivery manager, the accountant, the technical lead, and the fractional CTO for some of the partners that we have. I was covering a lot of responsibilities.

But then the team and the company grew, and right now, we have a team of project managers, technical leads, and team leads, and now my responsibilities are more high-level. But at the same time, I’m trying to be involved in all kinds of processes. My main role right now is ensuring that all of our clients and partners are happy and satisfied and all of our teams are satisfied as well that we have interesting projects and interesting incoming leads.

What are you proud of during your time working at NERDZ LAB?

The main thing that I want to highlight is the partnership that we’ve established with some of our long-term clients. And, of course, all the clients are equal to us. All the projects are interesting because we are trying to work only with the interesting one and the one that has the potential to grow.

Still, at the same time, I think a good metric to show our quality is all the positive references, feedback, and reviews that we are constantly getting. Not all of them are ideal because we are not ideal for sure, but still, all of the reviews we are getting show a good level and quality from both the technical and the management perspectives. And all the attention we provide to all the clients, I think it matters. Right now, we get a big part of all of our incoming leads as references from our existing clients, specifically the clients we have worked directly with, so I think that’s a great outcome and a great result.

Tell us some cool insights and features of working with you (in PM)

A project management team that we established from scratch also matters. The business analysis team also matters, so those things probably show that they are not our end goals, and we still want to grow. We have a great roadmap to move forward, but that’s a good result. From my perspective, many things that matter come down to the fact that you need to pay attention and be close to the details. Only in that way client will feel that you are part of the team. Not just a vendor that completes the work and forgets about that, but you want to be a part of a team.

You always try to provide some valuable comments or hints and guidance that can help the project succeed based on your experience. Because some of the partners, some of our clients, come as a startup. They have less experience than we do. You can close your eyes and do what they tell you.

Still, at some point, it can be a moment when something does not make much sense, either from the technical or the product perspective – and that’s a great moment where you can show your involvement in the project and the fact that you care. It’s really like success matters for you, not from the financial perspective but both from the growth and opportunities perspective, like building long-term relationships, getting a great connection with some people, making their product succeed, and doing some nice things.

What inspires you in your work?

You can become a part of something bigger than you are. You can be involved in different projects, and in that way, you can grow with your partners, clients, and projects that you develop. That inspired me the most: I can see the direct outcome of my daily work. Of course, I’m not participating in the coding itself. However, since our teams work closely internally, I still participate in many of those conversations. I’m really happy to see when the team succeeds and when the team provides nice solutions.

What advice can you give to delivery managers who are just starting their careers?

As a delivery manager, you should focus on a more high-level approach or high-level processes, like ensuring that everything your clients want and need is properly translated to the team and that your team is on a stand and has the right connection with the stakeholders. Everyone who is involved in the project needs to trust them. Then they will feel quite motivated as well because they will understand they have some responsibility on them. They will feel that they are also part of something bigger.

How do you assess the progress of the IT industry in the next 10 years?

It’s tough to predict it precisely, but we can see so far already the movement for new cutting-edge technologies and moving from the old Web 2.0 to, for example, Web 3.0, the so-called crypto Web. It’s like the more decentralized approach of managing the internet and things that we have there, and at the same time, we have a huge impact that we can feel now is artificial intelligence. It will be a crucial moment for all of the companies and developers to understand that they should become partners, they should become teammates with artificial intelligence, and they need to adopt it to help them make the work faster and better.

What were the challenges at work?

If you have a good team, they always know that is the responsibility, and if something goes wrong, they always know that they need to pay more attention to certain things. They can even work overtime when it’s not required, but they want to ensure that everything goes smoothly. So that’s the same mindset as I have. So if needed, I can stay longer, I can work longer, I can work as a developer, I can work as a designer, as a QA, anyone. In that way, you always accept all the challenges. All of them are unique, and all of them are always about the tight deadlines and all of the turnarounds that you get from the clients, but in the end, if you have the proper focus, you can go through that, and everyone will be happy.

Do you have enough free time for your hobbies? How do you spend your free time?

Previously I had a problem, and I think that’s a widespread problem that many people tend to work more than just five days per week and they work during the weekend. But then I realized that that approach makes me less efficient, and sometimes I get tired from what I do daily. As a result, for the last year or six months or so, I’ve been trying to minimize the work involvement during the weekend, and as a result, I focus only on the big days so I have like not normal hours for sure and I stay longer whenever it’s needed but then, as a result, I try not to do my daily things on the weekend.

As a result, it makes me feel much better in both the mental and physical way I think, and in this way I also have some free spare time to focus on other things and it’s not always those things related to IT, but they can also be related to the fact that you need to sit in front of your laptop, but at least they are not related to what you do daily so in that way you can still learn and keep learning some new things, new technology. You can start improving yourself as the artificial intelligence expert or whatever web expert to catch the technology.

What are some of your favorite movies, music, and books?

All my life I have been fascinated by fantasy and science fiction, and it’s in both the movies and the books. So I would not come with something new and such kind of giants, let’s call them giants, like “Lord of the Rings” and “Dune” they’re probably my favorite ones in terms of books reading, So that’s what I like the most but movies are also perfect and they are like one of the greatest movies probably so far.

And if we think about more professional literature, I would suggest reading so I have a couple of books here. So it’s “Ruthless Management of People and Profits” by Dan Kennedy. It’s a good one for management. I think it’s not fully correlated with our mission and vision in the company. Let’s call it so because it’s more that the approach that Dan Kennedy proposed there is more like a robust one more straightforward one. But that approach allows you to show the difference between how you act with the right people and not the right people let’s call them so. This book will help you as a manager to make the right decision faster and not hesitate in critical situations, or not even critical, so it will help you to be calmer and make the right decisions. The other one that I liked the most recently was “Never Split the Difference Negotiating as if Your Life Depends On It” by Chris Voss.