How to get to Google and what awaits you there: a Ukrainian shared his experience of living and working in New York

Ukrainian Roman Apostle managed to get a job at Google. He later quit to develop his own business. Now Roman shares his experience with others. He told the publication about the stages of the interview, the salary, and those who had to work with a company known throughout the world MC.today.

History in brief

32-year-old Roman Apostol has been working in IT for 15 years. He was among the founders of Preply (an online educational platform that connects students with private tutors remotely. - Ed.), then led the development team at Google. Today, he, together with his wife and friend Max Lisak, is developing the Mate Academy, where they teach programming for free, and they take money only after employment.

About how he managed to get to work at Google and why he decided to quit the world-famous company, Roman told in person. But first, you should find out how it all began.

So, Roman was born in the town of Terebovlya, Ternopil region. His parents are teachers, so he studied a lot from childhood. “From the fifth grade I participated in mathematics competitions, in 2001 I even won 20 hryvnias (at that time it was a lot of money). In the 11th grade, together with five more Ukrainians, he entered the international competition in Mexico and entered the TOP-50 graduates in the world, ”Roman said about himself.

Thanks to the Olympics, the guy without exams entered the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv at the Faculty of Cybernetics. “I frankly missed you for the first year and a half - it was easy for me. I just got acquainted and talked there, ”he recalls. - In America, it is often said that a university is a very expensive place to meet. We are not so expensive, but the principle is the same. Actually, just at the university I met my wife Anya. ”

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While still studying at the university, Roman began looking for part-time jobs in IT. He found his first job through a marketplace like Upwork - the platform works on the same principle, but with one difference: the task is performed by several people, and the money is received by whoever the customer chooses. “The first couple of orders I made for two weeks, but I was not chosen. From the third time I was already able to earn. Over time, it started to get better: customers have already written to me directly, without all these competitions. I was even hired to work as a project engineer for the American Topcoder company, ”he said.

Even then, Roman earned well, at the level of an experienced developer in Ukraine.

“Back in the university, I met Dmitry (Dmitry Voloshin, one of the co-founders of Preply. - Ed.), and when he graduated, together with other guys, we founded Preply (an online educational platform where you can find private tutors, mainly in foreign languages. - Ed.) ”, - recalls Roman.

A year and a half, he worked on the project as a developer. This time was enough for him to understand how a small startup works. “Everything went well, but I wanted to see how everything works in a large system company. I stayed in excellent relations with the guys, now Preply is a partner of Mate Academy, our students also work there, ”he said.

How to get to Google

“Getting to Google was easy - I had classmates who already worked for the company. There, employees are often asked who they would advise, so recruiters wrote to me more than once, the resume was already in the database, ”the developer shared.

Interviews are held in two stages. First you need to talk with a recruiter, then perform one or two test algorithmic tasks in telephone mode. “For training, I advise Leetcode (a platform simulator for solving problems. - Ed.), it’s worth solving several hundred problems of different levels there, ”Roman advises.

If these steps are successful, you will be invited to an interview in the city where you want to work. “I immediately chose New York. I wanted to work in the city, not in the village. An office in California is essentially a village: everyone lives in private houses, there is no public transportation, cafes and restaurants close early. Even in San Francisco, it’s hard to find a place that works after 11pm. While I am young, I do not want to get attached to the car and live in a city where nothing happens, ”Roman explained his choice.

Then there was a trip to New York. And although Google pays for travel and accommodation, Roman stopped for four days with friends. “I just wanted to be with friends,” he explained. - After the interview, I returned home, and a couple of weeks later I was offered a job. Preparation for the move took another six months. ”

Life in america

“Living in America was easy - Google helped with the adaptation. I had no usual credit card problems for visitors - a company representative brought me to the bank and an account was opened immediately. The company provides housing for the first three months, they feed it in the office three times a day, ”says Roman.

Career growth awaited him after a few months. “I began to manage the development team at Doubleclick (an advertising division of the company. - Ed.) ", - he continued his story.

Management at Google, according to Roman, "works great." For example, each employee can see how much the company is making. "The work of a department of 300 people is planned not" from above "but" from below "- engineers know much better what exactly needs to be done in a particular project," a former employee of an American corporation cited another example.

But there were also disadvantages. “From the technical side, I did not learn much in the company. I have something to compare with - in a small company you study much faster. Larger ones like Google are slower. They have something to lose, ”said Roman. “We at a startup in six months restarted the product from scratch twice, and when I looked at my results in Google six months later, I got tears in my eyes.”

The illusion that graduates of American universities know much more quickly dissipated in Roman's mind. “At first I listened to them at interviews and thought:“ This guy knows so much and knows how, how can I manage him? ” But in fact, it turned out that they are the same theoreticians as graduates of any Kiev university, they just know how to sell themselves very well, ”Roman noted. This skill, he added, is lacking in our developers. “We often have the opposite: they can do a lot, but underestimate themselves,” he complains.

Google salary

As for earnings, Roman’s earnings on Google were above average. According to Quora, the average salary in the company for 2016 was about $ 170 thousand per year. “But life for this money in Ukraine and America is different: if in Kiev an abstract engineer earns $ 3 thousand, then in the USA he needs to get $ 12 thousand in order to live the same way,” the IT specialist explained.

So in 2017, he decided to quit and return to Kiev. Now he is developing here with his wife Mate Academy. By the way, the idea to create an academy belongs to Roman's wife. Anna taught the first person herself, on Skype. Gradually, an understanding of how this works came, and the couple decided that they needed to grow further. Today, their team already has 30 people.

The company continues to grow rapidly even during quarantine. “Already by 2021 we plan to employ 3-5 thousand people a year,” Roman shared his plans.