I’ve not just moved to yet another company – I’ve joined a team of like-minded and focused talents.

Welcome post from Mikhail Sudbin, Advalange CTO.

Dear friends,
In this welcome post I want to shed some light on my joining the Advalange organization. First, let me say a couple of words on my vision of software development and the safety-critical domain in particular. This will help to understand better what made me make this decision.

Revise your memory and compare the software industry in the early ’90s and now. Various frameworks and engines significantly changed the way application and solution software are developed. Just imagine if anybody tells you: “Every single line of code for this ERP system was written within these walls.” You would take it normally in 1995 but today you won’t believe it. New technologies are developing along with new methodologies. There was no such phrases as “scrum” or “application platform” 20 years ago.

The safety critical area is a little bit more conservative but now it is entering the new period of evolution and similar techniques come into play. As an example, look at integrated modular avionics and new approaches and challenges it brings to the aerospace domain. Organizations should accept the evolution and change accordingly to face it.

“Always be focused and keep in mind

how the result should look like.”

The organization I used to be working for was quite conservative and was not eager to catch on to the new trends. I was searching for the new opportunities when Evgeny proposed to found the new company. At first I was quite pessimistic. No solid background, no corporate culture, no proven structure… However, when we talked it over I saw that the idea could work. Let’s gather experienced, like-minded people and build a new entity. We can make “drawbacks” our strengths. Let’s build culture and infrastructure aimed at facing the new challenges. Our people are knowledgeable and creative enough to do it. There will be no bureaucracy or legacy constraints that other organizations face, and it will be a huge benefit.

We all sat together and discussed our positive and negative experiences of working with various organizations. It was quite a wide range of case studies: from Fortune 500 corporations with 10-year-long projects with thousands of people involved to tiny labs with a dozen people max. We came to the decision that often very few people know for what reason they are doing particular things, especially in big organizations. We definitely wanted to be different.

“Business process is a means encouraging

people to act and aim for results,

while the team is a core of Advalange.”

Thus, one of our main principles is “be focused.” You need to know what the result should look like. You need to put on the hat of the customer, manufacturer, user, vendor, and, at the very end, the hat of the engineer to figure it out. You need to understand how each particular task influences the result. Another principle that we agreed upon is that our world is not perfect. If you try to build a perfect product, you will fail. Even the famous gadget has its own drawbacks. Be a little bit more pragmatic: deliver the right result, spending the right amount of time and money.
Other key features of our new organization were based on these two principles. We accepted that people and teams should be the core aspect of our organization. Business processes should encourage people to act and aim for results. On the other hand, every single individual should commit to the principles and be tough enough to follow them. I was happy to know that the awesome group of cool professionals shares this point of view and we would be able to get the team together.

I did not doubt long and accepted the role of chief technology and process officer at Advalange. I think that this role is very close to the opportunity I was searching for. I believe the Advalange principles can be a sound basis of a unique corporate culture in the safety critical domain. I would be proud to prove that such a way of doing things can lead to building a solid and respectable organization. It will be a challenge and will definitely bring me to a new level of mastery.