Usually, a story about career growth is a linear success story with predictable development. The story of Vitaly Nadezhnikov is an exciting journey of personal and professional development, a motivating and inspiring one. Moreover, unexpected twists give an entirely new perspective on the profession.
How did a young sailor not only switch to IT, but also excel in the industry by consistently taking on the most challenging projects and securing positions despite having less experience than others?
Vitalijs is a DevOps engineer, a modest friendly guy. “Even I don’t understand what he is involved in,” says Jurijs Meitalovs, the Head of the IT department at Bilderlings. According to Jurijs, it’s not easy to find employees with such enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge, who desire to climb a new profession and develop in it. And Vitalijs’ experience is just a vivid example that everything is possible in life if you make an effort.
Charting a New Course: From the Deck to the Desk
What brought me from the sea to the shore? Ambition. I decided to become a sailor when I was just three years old. Eventually, I graduated from maritime college as a mechanic and worked at sea.
Alongside my maritime career, I pursued programming: passing exams in advance and spending summer at sea. It was a good job with a good salary. But there was one “but”: I was a regular crew member, yet I aspired to be an officer. Despite salary increases, my rank remained unchanged.
I didn’t wait for a promotion and asked for it by myself.
However, while my salary was increased again, my rank remained unchanged. At the same time (while I was already completing my bachelor’s degree in programming), I was offered a job in IT onshore. And I agreed.
“In the world of serious IT”
It was a position of service engineer — essentially a go-to IT guy. I was usually called onsite to fix things that couldn’t be resolved remotely, along with some additional tasks. But the main focus was on the tasks mentioned earlier.
Transitioning to IT, I took a significant hit in terms of income: compared to my work at sea, it felt like pocket money. But there was a company car, a mobile phone paid by the company, and, most importantly, it was fascinating. I enjoyed learning new things, working with clients, helping them, and ensuring systems were running smoothly.
Seeing a friend, who was already far ahead of me in knowledge, pursue a master’s degree inspired me to do the same.
And I followed him to develop further. I would come home after work and spend evenings studying.
While pursuing my master’s degree, a friend mentioned to me: “Hey, we’re looking for an implementation engineer at our workplace, and you’d be a perfect fit (IMHO).” Despite still contemplating a return to the sea, I agreed to the interview.
I asked him to send me the requirements for the position. When I opened the document, I was taken aback: “Oh my, I don’t know anything about this! Linux! Databases and so on.”
I began preparing for the interview: studying and experimenting in the evenings. I thought, “Alright, I’ll tell them during the interview that I still have much to learn, but I’m very diligent.”
And that’s exactly what I said, being honest about my current level of expertise. I made it through the second round, then the third… and when they called me to say they were hiring me, I nearly cried tears of joy! It was during this experience that I found myself truly immersed in the world of serious IT.
My IT Odyssey
Sometimes, observing how my colleagues worked, I felt overwhelmed due to the high expectations. Everything seemed like rocket science to me at first. But there was something remarkable about it all, even the documentation!
You know, I used to think that IT professionals were overpaid — just a trendy job with inflated salaries. But when I witnessed firsthand what it entailed and started delving into it myself, I realized that every penny was well deserved.
At first, it was scary and confusing. But I kept telling myself: “People invented this, so you’ll figure it out.” Still, it was tough! Thankfully, I have perseverance and diligence. I really dislike it when I can’t do something. I’ll keep trying, getting frustrated, trying again — until I succeed. Even if it’s one step at a time, I’ll get there in the end.
For the first six months, they didn’t even send me on any business trips. But then they sent me to Serbia. On the plane, I was reading manuals, preparing myself for the trial by fire. When I arrived, they told me: “Relax in the hotel for now, and then we’ll come to pick you up, and then there will be a stress test.”
What were these stress tests? At first, I thought they would be testing me, you know, checking how I handle pressure. But of course, they were testing the system. It was fascinating!
About the stress tests: We had an in-house solution for testing the system under load, aimed at making our migrations, upgrades, or other specific tasks seamless for end-users. Due to high loads during business hours, we had to perform these tests at night, typically around 2–3 am.
To give you an idea of the load we faced, we could reach up to 300 operations per second during peak moments.
On my first business trip, once we completed the migration and tested it under the load, people applauded as if we had just landed a plane. The emotions were overwhelming.
And then the business trips began, a continuous adventure: migration one time, certification another, and everything was non-standard. I worked in Africa, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and spent almost a year in Belarus. Various configurations were prepared according to client needs, implemented, and went live, followed by support and handover afterwards.
New Challenges, New Beginnings: Facing the Unknown with Perseverance
During one of my business trips, I met a guy who spoke passionately about DevOps as a field. He invited me to their office to show me how they work. That’s when I became interested in mastering it myself.
Yes, I worked with sophisticated and complex systems, but that field seemed too narrow for further growth. And DevOps, on the other hand, offered new horizons. So, I made a move, a downgrade one: I left for another company where I could explore DevOps and challenge myself in a new direction.
I was given one project.
After a while, I approached my manager and said, ‘Please give me another, something more challenging.’
And they did: it was a project where, as I heard, some people were quitting within a week, saying ‘Screw it!’ It was so tough there! I didn’t just struggle to understand how things were connected, I didn’t even know about many of the components it consisted of! I spent 9 months on that project, and it was an incredible experience. However, I wasn’t offered any promotion within that company; instead, they proposed a vacancy at another.
I was invited for an interview, and there were tests. I spent weeks preparing to pass them!
Like a Great Team
It was a good experience; I had a chance to try myself at Bilderlings, and I didn’t miss it. I really like this place.
Here, they have very talented IT specialists. They know so much! But it’s not just about that — they not only know but also willingly share their knowledge. It works like a great team. And people themselves are very pleasant: unpretentious, open, and straightforward.
The networks here are very complex, and the guys are simply gods at it. Sometimes I watch them, amazed. I learn here every day, and yet it seems like I can never catch up with them — they’re just that awesome!
DevOps Perspectives and IT Trends
This word was once too trendy, and now it’s fading out of fashion. I would call my job differently — System Engineer. That’s my role. We have a system that we want to integrate into our infrastructure. And our main concept is infrastructure as a code. This means that we describe everything in the code, all settings, configurations, manual or otherwise, need to be deployed by code with no manual interference.
I believe that the demand for DevOps roles will decrease now. AI is being implemented everywhere, conditions are changing. I think programmers will take the lead.
Yes, AI can write code too, but until now, it’s pretty raw, and ultimately, AI is still developed by programmers.
I also think there’s a trend towards integrated products to reduce the need for manpower: SaaS, BaaS, anything-as-a-Service, a block of products like this.
How Does Maritime Experience Influence Work in IT?
I feel a sense of extra respect from time to time, or at least some positive surprise.
I often hear two phrases when people find out about my maritime experience: “there are no former sailors” and “oh, you’re an interesting character.” Perhaps, if someone has worked so many years at sea and then made such a drastic change, he can accomplish a lot.
