Education along with career: Exigen's rules of common decency
Education and career
If you are an IT student and are concerned about your future, your career perspectives are not to be taken lightly. Your competitiveness on the market depends on great many factors, such as your academic background, accumulated practical knowledge, and personal traits. Today, another important advantage is an experience of work or internship in a company recognized as a major player in the IT industry, such as Exigen Services.
High stakes
“Exigen Services is one of the leaders of the export-oriented software development industry in the Central and Eastern Europe,” says Anastasia Novoseltseva, Director of Marketing Communications, Exigen Services. “The world market of outsourcing services in the IT sector is growing rapidly. Now that the IT industry has accumulated a sufficient work experience in outsourcing projects, we see the advent of Outsourcing 2.0, a concept combining a number of advanced practices and technologies of work. Our company fully meets the requirements imposed by the new approach, which, in particular, allows us to command attention of the specialists inclined towards the flexible methodologies.”
The range of Exigen’s business includes the financial services industry, insurance, telecommunications, public health, electronic commerce, logistics and distribution, retail trade, manufacturing and entertainment industry. The clientele of this company, one of the world leaders in IT outsourcing, include DB, S&P, T-Mobile, Software AG, Universal Music and other Global 1000 companies.
As a company with a strong corporate culture and a profound understanding of today’s IT industry, Exigen Services is striving to carry this understanding across to the young specialists coming on the market in the nearest few years. This ambition has lead to the creation of a rather large educational structure covering several modes of interaction with the potential members of the IT community.
IT College
“Currently, the Russian market experience an acute shortage of qualified IT specialists,” says Valentin Onosovsky, Director of Educational Programs and University Relations, Exigen Services. “At the same time, the background of college graduates coming to the companies does not fully match the requirements of today’s IT industry.
Historically, our system of IT education has been science-oriented. It has been oriented towards the training of universal specialists able to create new technologies from scratch and solve virtually any problems. At the same time, the industry is already in need of many literate and qualified engineers who would be able to create new products from building blocks - that is, from the elements of existing technologies. The training of these IT specialists should be mostly engineering-oriented. Most universities in St. Petersburg have already begun realizing this and updating their curricula.”
The orientation towards the training of engineers does not imply abandonment of the traditional university programs providing fundamental knowledge. Only the accents are somewhat different. To help the universities organize this process, Exigen Services has developed and implemented a number of educational programs under the aegis of the IT College. One of the most extensive forms of cooperation between the company and the universities is a full-fledged one-year lecture course included into the mandatory curriculum. Thus, at the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of St. Petersburg State University, the specialists from Exigen Services are giving a lecture course entitled Introduction into industrial programming in Java/J2EE. The University of IT, Mechanics and Optics initiated two courses: Introduction into industrial programming in C#/.NET and Software testing, also lectured by the company specialists. Other St. Petersburg schools are also staying in touch: the Electrotechnical University, the University of Aerospace Instrumentation and the University of Engineering and Economics have also come into a close cooperation with Exigen Services.
“Our university lectures are rather popular,” continues Mr. Onosovsky. “Usually, the attendance substantially exceeds the roll. Of course, for students in some specializations, the course in industrial Java programming is mandatory. However, students from other disciplines are glad to come to our lectures as well when they understand that we provide the exact kind of knowledge they may need in the nearest future. The trust on the part of the universities means a lot to us – it is an clear proof of our reputation in the academic community. If such schools as St. Petersburg State University and the University of IT, Mechanics and Optics include the lectures by our staff in their mandatory curriculum, it means a lot…”
Besides attending the lectures, students of the schools cooperating with Exigen Services may also become interns at the company. This is a unique opportunity for the students to get immersed into the work environment without interrupting the process of learning, to participate in project development, and for some of them – even discover their talents and prove themselves.
“We know the industry quite well and have a good understanding of work technologies, validating them by a strong corporate culture. The latter is especially important,” points out Anastasia Novoseltseva. “Besides the necessary skills in his/her specialization, the student will be able to acquire the knowledge not taught at school – the rules of the game on the market, in a big company, in a large, mobile, easily adjustable and adaptable team, in the atmosphere of the true creative freedom. This is one of the reasons we have so many candidates - about six applications per vacancy.
After the training at our company, the boys become full-fledged players on the labor market. Even if the student does not get a job offer from Exigen Services, he will easily find a job. The graduates of the IT College are in great demand," says Ms. Novoseltseva.
The School of Programming
In case you are not a student of a university with lecturers from Exigen Services, you have another path towards knowledge. This is the third year the company has been operating the School of Programming as a subdivision of the IT College.
“The School offers three programs: business programming in Java, business programming in C#/.NET, and software testing,” tells Mr. Onosovsky. “The principal goal of the training is to give the students profound and high-quality knowledge in the area chosen, which will allow the graduates to get involved right away in the actual projects of the company. In facts, we are polishing and systematizing the knowledge and skills our students have. In terms of practical results, I would compare it to six months or even a year of work experience in serious IT projects. Meanwhile, most students of the School are merely senior college students.”
To be admitted to the School, one has to pass a rather rigorous selection process - every employee of the company will confirm it without false pride. First, the applicant goes to company’s web site to fill out a questionnaire for further consideration. The principal criterion here is personal programming experience in the chosen language, at least a small one. At this stage, candidates are short-listed.
The second stage is a test determining the real technical level of the candidates, their theoretical background, and the English language skills. "Those who successfully complete the test assignment undergo a personal interview - the third stage, where personal traits are given the most attention," summarizes Exigen's Director of Educational Programs and University Relations.
In the software testing engineer training group, the selection is somewhat different. There is no test assignment, the selection is conducted by interview. A tester shall possess such traits as a sharp mind, precision, immunity to stress, ability to perform large volumes of work. Good skills in the English language are in fact more important for testers than for programmers.
Depending on the program chosen, the classes at the School of Programming are held for one to two months, two to four times a week in the evening hours. All students having successfully completed the training receive the training certificates, well familiar to the leading employers of St. Petersburg. The best ones are offered internship and employment at Exigen Services.
Flexible growth
The uniqueness of Exigen Services is in its combination of dynamism, usually characteristic of smaller IT organizations, with dependability typical for a large company.
“As our company is rapidly growing and continuously acquiring new projects,” describes Elena Komarova, Director of Organizational Development and Personnel at Exigen Services, “the career growth possibilities for recent graduates are virtually unlimited. Promising students are usually noticed in the course of training or internship. When a new graduate comes to work with us, he or she comes into one of the branches of the company – a division, and within the division – into a project for one of our clients. Upon proving oneself in teamwork, this person will eventually become a senior programmer, and then a technical leader of the project.”
A structural peculiarity of Exigen Services and similar companies is the possibility of career growth in different directions. For example, one may grow professionally. Then a programmer, for example, becomes a software architect. Alternatively, one may grow along the administrative lines – when the engineer becomes a leader of a project or a group of projects. Yet another way is to migrate to another professional field, such as a transfer from software development into marketing.
Elena Komarova herself makes a good example of the third way of career growth. “Five years ago, I came to the company as a programmer. I've come the way through being a project manager, then a division manager, to my current position of Director of Organizational Development and Personnel.”
