How a Ukrainian student got on Facebook, giving up on Google and Yandex

Having worked in the Google Maps division, Jaroslav Tverdokhleb moved to an internship on the social network Facebook. Photo: from the personal archive.

Yaroslav Tverdokhleb, a 23-year-old Ukrainian programmer, starting from college, managed to go a long way in the companies-giants of the industry.

When Yaroslav studied in the second year Kiev National Taras University Shevchenko, he was invited to a three-month internship at the Google office in Zurich, Switzerland. At that time, he was already a regular participant in Olympiads for programmers and Internet Olympiads, including international ones.

“They made a visa, paid for the flight. He paid for housing himself, but the salary allowed, ”Tverdokhleb tells in an interview to a Ukrainian IT magazine AIN.ua, - In fact, Google interns are paid well enough, there is no such thing that they live in a hostel and cannot afford anything. You feel fine there and bring something home. ”

According to Yaroslav, the most difficult for him was communication in English. And not on the technical topics for which he was prepared thanks to international competitions, but on the most simple ones - everyday ones.

After working in the Google Maps division, Jaroslav moved on to an internship on Facebook, where he was recommended by his partner in the Olympic team.

“In Facebook, interns are placed at about the same level as full-timers, they have the same powers and more responsible projects,” recalls Tverdokhleb.

At the end of the internship, Facebook made him a job offer, but Yaroslav accepted it only two years later: “I was in my third year then and didn’t know whether I wanted to move or not. I needed time to think, to graduate from the university — to get a bachelor's degree, then a master's degree. ”

In Kiev, Yaroslav worked part-time at the representative office of the Russian company Yandex as part of a team of four. In addition to the fact that the employees had an extremely flexible schedule, the management sometimes sponsored their participation in competitions.

“In Yandex, I worked my last year in Ukraine. I immediately told them that I was thinking of going to America, but I did not even consider moving to Moscow, ”explains Tverdokhleb. - I really liked Yandex, it was interesting there, but it was difficult to work remotely precisely in terms of communication - when someone needed to ask something, sometimes it wasn’t immediately possible to finish writing. It was a good experience, but more I would not work remotely. I like teamwork. ”

Jaroslav really got his team when he returned to Facebook. For more than a year, he and his wife have been living in Menlo Park, California, and have worked on the world's largest social network.

“Facebook does not hire people for any specific position, but simply finds suitable people, which it then uses in various projects,” Tverdokhleb says about a new stage in his life. - As a result, I chose Video Infrastructure and now I am working on processing and transcoding video uploaded to Facebook. In fact, I work with everything that happens with the video from the moment the user finished downloading, and until another user clicked on “watch”, not including the download and viewing itself. ”

According to Yaroslav, Facebook is not yet as big a company as Google or Microsoft, which has its advantages. One of them is the speed of decision making.

“If in other companies the project approves five levels of supervisors from above, and only then they are allowed to start planning, then on Facebook, if someone came up with something, within a month everything has already been done. I can't imagine Google doing something so fast. Personally, I like such dynamism, ”admits Yaroslav.

Now the talented Ukrainian programmer has the opportunity to see the founder and owner of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, at least once a week, who conducts a Q&A (questions and answers) session for employees and talks about the company's priorities.

“We are going to a cafe where he performs from a big stage. Who does not want to come, can watch online. He is asked questions, he answers. I like the example he sets for employees. I do not know whether he himself thinks up this or not, but what he says and how he says it is quite inspiring. I also saw him a couple of times in the dining room, as he sat eating. His office for meetings is such a glass cube, everyone passes by and sees it, ”says Yaroslav Tverdokhleb.

He has no long-term plans to stay in California, but he is not going to return to Ukraine until there is just as interesting work and an appropriate salary.

For more than a year, Yaroslav lives with his wife in California, where he works on the team of the world's largest social network. Photo: from the personal archive.