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Working at Wargaming

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Alexander Sobolev is the head of Wargaming’s Rapid Prototyping Team

“We need more skilled people, and that means we need to promote Cyprus more to developers abroad. They have to understand that, if they come to Cyprus, they will not be alone. Creative people need to be with others like themselves, where they can grow their networks. With that, the many advantages of Cyprus in terms of tax, incentives, company formation, legal system and, of course, climate will fill out the mix.”

Alexander Sobolev and his team work at the very beginning of the creation of a videogame, called the “ideation phase.” This concept stage is critical, because an issue at this level can taint the entire game construction effort. Sobolev’s team includes topflight developers who get videogames up and running and make sure they will stay that way.

“Game development is not just about engineering. It’s also an art, you have to have a brilliant idea for the game. But the execution is critical too. You have to have a lot of experience to get from point A to point B successfully. And there are so many choices to make, you need very skilled and creative people to make the games work.”

Sobolev himself belongs to the classic group of very skilled and creative professionals in development. “I was 12 years old when I knew I would become a programmer and I was 14 when I touched my first computer. I’ve done nothing else ever since then.” His team is a group of kindred spirits. “We test new mechanics, and my guys are very proficient,” Sobolev points out.

“I mean, they’re good engineers and have a lot of experience in the gaming industry. At this stage in videogame creation – right at the beginning – we need a lot of understanding, a lot of experience to be able to deliver at this stage.” To form this group, Sobolev says that he is very, very selective.

“We don’t have a big group. We started with 3, after 2 years was 11, then, in a year 21.” By industry standards, this is a small group.

“Most of the game developers are dreaming of making a game that will be delivered to the market and become a big hit. My group is different. I work with people who care about making games. They are driven by the idea that they will make a great game that really works well. We start out with an idea and we make a few quick and dirty versions just to get a sense of how they will work. And then we build that idea into a brilliant user experience. Finding developers who appreciate this process is not easy, but when we find them, they stay with us and we become a very tight group.”

In fact, Wargaming does not have a high level of turnover for developers, and in this they are unlike most other major tech companies.

“We have some rotation. But it is small, very small rotation,” Sobolev says. “This is because the developers we hire share our vision. They appreciate the opportunity to make great games, with a great user experience, and they stay with us.”

Sobolev sources developers from all over the world. “Now we are going to grow, but It will not be 100 per cent growth in Cyprus. We became accustomed to working remotely during the pandemic, and we plan to expand in that way.”

Isn’t that somewhat challenging to manage?

“Yes, it is. Before the pandemic, it was more challenging, because we have studied and learned a lot since then. We worked right through the period of lockdowns and our business has remained good, we were delivering, we were moving ahead.”

Is it possible to get the same level of productivity when you work with someone remotely?

“No. Perhaps in some cases, yes, but not in others. When it comes to programming and coding, it works well. It’s even better not to ask them to come to the office, and then they can spend their time as efficiently as they can.

“But when it comes to the creative part, we need to meet in person. We find that online meetings are not as effective as when we meet together, and we can exchange ideas. Nothing can replace live personal meetings in terms of creative communication. We don’t have to meet every day, but regularly, once or twice a week in person.”

Most of Sobolev’s team come from abroad, but he hired the first Cypriot last year.

Finding experienced senior developers in Cyprus is not easy, as it is challenging all around the world. “It is indeed rather hard to find them. We have a team of tech specialists in Limassol, all from Eastern Europe and Russia. It will be some time before the IT community in Cyprus is large enough for us to source all our developers here. Part of the problem is that many come out of the university, go for further education in Europe or the US, or they go there to work for a major company, and they settle there and never come back.

“We do have to create an environment in Cyprus in which these young developers can build a career. It is happening gradually, but we are at the starting point.”

“We’ve also signed some very young people just out of university. We want to teach them, and to set them up for success in the industry. It’s good to have junior guys who will do the things that we expect a junior person to do. So we will keep in contact with a young specialist who knows some math and a few tricks, but he’s not ready to deliver. We’re going to invest in these guys to bring them up to speed.

“We are beginning to work with the universities here to create programmes that build developers. This is just starting out, but it has great promise.” Cyprus needs to build a community of developers, Sobolev insists.

“We need more skilled people, and that means we need to promote Cyprus more to developers abroad. They have to understand that, if they come to Cyprus, they will not be alone. Creative people need to be with others like themselves, where they can grow their networks. With that, the many advantages of Cyprus in terms of tax, incentives, company formation, legal system and, of course, climate will fill out the mix.”

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