Interview with one of the first Software Engineers at Miro: “Love what you do, do what you love, and understand why you’re doing it.”

We interviewed Sergey Shisholik — Engineering Manager, ex-Backend Engineer, and Team Lead at Miro. Sergey joined Miro when he was 15 (!!!); he has been with the company since day one.

In this interview:

• Traveling across the US: Grand Canyon, Yosemite Falls;
• New Zealand: Police chase, Earthquake in Christchurch, Whales;
• Spelunking and claustrophobia;
• First computer;
• Getting a job at Miro;
• Reflection on the company hypergrowth and personal growth.

Traveling across the US

Interviewer: In 2019 you traveled across the US: you covered 5500 miles across 12 states in 21 days.

Sergey Shisholik: I remember that it was a really long trip! I traveled with my friend, he also works at Miro. We started from New York, spent a few days sightseeing. But on day three or four we felt kind of bored. So we were sitting in our hotel room…

Our hotel was very close to Manhattan. So to save some money, we moved and we booked a room at a military lodge — that’s a hotel for people who served in the army and are now retired; it was cheaper.

As I said, on day three or four we got a little bored, so we decided to change our travel plans. My friend wanted to go to Salem where they used to burn witches. And I really wanted to visit the capital: Washington. So we bought our tickets in the evening, and the next morning we set off in opposite directions. That was fun, and we added two more states to our route as a bonus.

Interviewer: Your English wasn’t very good at the time. What was it like to communicate with the locals? I mean, the English you learn at school is not the same as the English Americans speak in real life.

Sergey Shisholik: Yeah, there are lots of different people, and everyone speaks with a different accent. So very often you hear a simple phrase, but you don’t get it. And you ask to repeat it again and again, and people don’t understand what’s going on…

Like, I’m in a shop, and a cashier says to me: “Press the green button.” But the way she says it is completely incomprehensible to me. And I reply something like: “What? Sorry, I didn’t understand. Can you repeat, please?” And she repeats the same phrase, with exactly the same intonation and the same accent, only a bit louder. It’s louder, and still incomprehensible. Sometimes it felt as if we were speaking completely different languages.

It was a bit difficult, but not too hard, I’d say. Of course, American people use a lot of slang, and when they do that, it can get confusing. So you ask what they mean, and they go like: “All right, I see your problem.” And then they start using regular English, like: “London is the capital of Great Britain.”

Interviewer: While you were in the US, did you improve your English? Was it easier to communicate after the trip?

Sergey Shisholik: I can’t say I improved it a lot, because we didn’t talk much to local people. To give you an idea of how we traveled: we would get to a new place, we’d walk around, do some sightseeing, then we would get back into the car and we’d drive to the next place. We spoke English only in restaurants and cafes, when someone started talking to us.

Here’s a typical way to strike up a conversation in the US: you drive for six hours, see a gas station along the road, and stop to use their restrooms. While you’re waiting in line, someone walks up to you and they say: “Nice weather, do you like it?” And you reply: “A bit windy, actually.” Your conversation partner is wearing shorts, wheres you’re all wrapped up and freezing. That way you start talking to people — in fact, people start talking to you.

By the way, I remember another story where a guy started talking to me while I was standing in line at the restrooms at a Starbucks. Obviously, lines are the best place for small talk with different people.

Interviewer: What kind of car did you drive in the US?

Sergey Shisholik: For the first couple of days we rented a Mustang convertible, because to visit the US and to not drive a Mustang was just unthinkable. We put on some rap music, and that was cool — you’re driving on, with the top open, blasting loud music from the speakers, and it feels like: “This is the American dream!” Such a special feeling, I still have great memories of it.

Grand Canyon

Sergey Shisholik: I definitely did not expect that kind of scale.

We really wanted to take a helicopter tour over the canyon, but it’s so expensive — something like 250 bucks. And if you want to sit in front, next to the pilot, you get charged extra. In the end we thought: “Probably this is our only trip to the US, let’s just do it!”

The helicopter takes off, and everything seems so small, and the canyon doesn’t look grand so anymore. I mean, it’s still vast and boundless… And then you fly down right into the canyon, and you really see how huge it actually is. The helicopter is flying along in the canyon, and there’s plenty of space below and around you… You feel awed by the scale of it. Nature created it over billions of years… it’s just incredible.

Yosemite Falls

Interviewer: What else impressed you in the US?

Sergey Shisholik: Let me see… It’s hard to pick one thing, because everything was so different: lifestyle, nature… Although I had seen some of those things in movies.

Something else that impressed me a lot was Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park. It takes about two hours to climb up about 800 meters, and then you get to see an absolutely stunning view. You’re standing there, you want to remember that moment, that view, forever, so when something in your life goes wrong, you can think about it, imagine you’re there, and everything else seems unimportant and trivial.

We climbed some steep rocks there, it was very slippery, you could easily fall down–and fall a long way down before hitting the bottom. That added a touch of extreme to our adventure. It was worth it: when you see beauty, you crave for more — you want to be part of this world, explore it, find beauty in it. If you find yourself traveling in the West side of the US, you should definitely visit Yosemite Falls and climb up. That’s a must-do.

New Zealand

Interviewer: Let’s talk about New Zealand a bit. You visited the design studio that made “The Lord of the Rings”.

Sergey Shisholik: Right. They don’t shoot the movies, they produce the special effects. As for “The Lord of the Rings”, the studio did not just produce 3D graphics — they did many other things as well: costumes, knives, swords, suits of armor, and 3D animation for all the objects that could not be reproduced in the physical world.

They are based in New Zealand; their track record includes a lot of other movies such as “Avatar” and “Blade Runner”. They also filmed “Halo” — well, they did the special effects for it, and a lot of other cool movies.

In their design facility they have a special route for tourists, where they show you all kinds of models, helms, swords and so on, and they tell you how they made them. You look at these models — everything looks so real! Like the King Kong muzzle — you can see every single hair, carefully inserted by hand. They tell you also how “The Lord of the Rings” helm was created: they had to make it look battered, so they first made a regular helm, and then busted it — they hit it with swords, threw onto the floor, and kicked it to make it look old.

When they shoot extras, people in the background get plastic or metal swords, not very elaborate, and the same goes for their costumes. As for the extras at the front, their suits of armor and their props take a longer time to make, they are extremely detailed. They showed us some Lord of the Rings daggers — so skillfully made, just amazing.

Police chase

Sergey Shisholik: Every time I rent a car in a foreign country, I try to find out in advance what you can and can’t do on the road. For example, in Russia you may exceed the speed limit by 10 miles without any problem, or even by 20 if no one is watching you, but in other countries that may be prohibited. The articles we read about driving in New Zealand said that there are a lot of police officers, and that you can’t exceed the speed limit even by one km/h, otherwise you can get a hefty speeding ticket, or you might even be deported.

In the beginning we drove very carefully, we followed all the rules. Then we noticed that everyone else drove faster than us, we were always stuck in the slow lane. We couldn’t understand what was going on, but a couple of days later we realized that there were no police officers and no cameras. So we thought: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”–and we started speeding, too.

We traveled all over New Zealand without seeing a single police officer. Then we arrived in Queenstown, a popular city on the South Island famous for extreme sports. From Queenstown we decided to drive to Milford Sound, a fjord in a national park surrounded by rocks, a very beautiful place. We were about halfway to our destination, when I realized that I had forgotten my documents back at the hotel–passport, driving license, rental car papers–everything! First, we freaked out, but then we thought: “It’s all right, we haven’t seen a single police officer so far, we’ll probably make it to our destination”. We got there all right, and on our way back we happily forgot that we didn’t have any papers with us.

So, while driving along, we saw a police car. They had stopped someone, and a police officer was talking to the driver… We got tense. I slowed down immediately, and I started driving overly cautiously. We drove by them, but a few minutes later we noticed that they were behind us. We started panicking, and thinking what we were going to do and say when they would stop us. Then, the police car passed us and just drove on.

Earthquake in Christchurch

Interviewer: You also said you were in an earthquake in New Zealand.

Sergey Shisholik: Yeah, that’s an awesome story. It’s the only earthquake I’ve experienced in my life so far. We were in a city called Christchurch. A major earthquake did hit the place, it destroyed half the city, they are still recovering. A lot of people were killed, and there’s a memorial to honor the casualties. So you drive around and see all the destruction–it’s extremely sad.

New Zealand is a seismically active area. It’s normal to drive along the road and see another road next to it, that was ripped apart by an earthquake. Or maybe half a bridge is missing–normal sights in New Zealand.

So, we spent a couple of nights in Christchurch, and here’s what happened: I was sleeping, and in my dream I heard that my phone started vibrating. “That’s strange”, I thought, “I’m in New Zealand, no one should be able to reach me on my phone.” I checked the phone: it was lying on the floor next to the bed, and it was not vibrating. “What’s vibrating, then?” That’s when I realized that everything around me was shaking: the table, the hotel room furniture, the floor — everything! I remember very clearly how I started smiling: “Oh, that’s an earthquake! I’ll tell my friend about it in the morning.”

The funny thing is that when I told my friend, he replied that he had felt it, too, but he thought it was just me walking, stomping around really loudly, and causing the furniture to shake.

That was a magnitude four earthquake about 5 miles away from the city. Wd could feel it pretty strongly in the city, too.

Whales

Interviewer: I also know from your Instagram that you saw a whale in New Zealand — a real one, from up close.

Sergey Shisholik: Yeah, it took us a while to find it–another very interesting experience. There’s a place on the East coast of the South Island where whales usually go–they either live there, or they stay there for a while. The promo brochure said: “If you don’t see a whale, you’ll get a refund,” so it was a good deal.

At the entrance they asked us: “Do you suffer from seasickness?” and we answered: “No! What do you mean, seasickness? We’re tough guys from Perm, we never feel seasick.” They offered some pills against seasickness, but we didn’t take any. 10 minutes after leaving, we realized how rash a decision that was: the waves were very tall, you’d go out onto the deck, and you’d see a wave coming toward you, then the ship would climb up the wave, and then it would slide down between two waves, until you’d no longer see the shore, because you’d be caught in between two huge waves. The ship was tossed back and forth pretty hard — yeah, that’s the Pacific.

We felt very sick, we were wrecks. I was just about to throw up when we finally spotted the whales. That was after being out at sea for about an hour–a long time, the whales didn’t want to come up closer. They normally come up to the surface to breathe, and then they and go back underwater. Maybe they had some extra air in their lungs or something, that’s why they didn’t want to show up. And the ship had equipment, a radar or a sonar, to locate the whales, and maybe give them a signal. I don’t remember if we used it or not, but one whale calf finally came up. It wasn’t very big, but I was happy–that was exactly why I had gotten there: to see a whale slap its tail and dive back down in the water.

It’s hard to describe emotions, because when you’re in there, all your senses are alert and working hard — and it’s difficult to express the feeling you experience through photos, or an Instagram post, or a podcast. You just have to be there. So, if you have a chance to travel to New Zealand, or the US, or anywhere else, just do it.

Spelunking and claustrophobia

Interviewer: Once you visited cave in Russia. Tell me about it.

Sergey Shisholik: To begin with, I am claustrophobic…

Interviewer: Excellent start.

Sergey Shisholik: So I thought, “One nail drives out another…” and decided to go for it. Another thing is — we were five, and no one had any spelunking experience — zero. The plan was to get a map of the cave…

Interviewer: With the exit marked with a cross.

Sergey Shisholik: Right: the entrance and the exit. We were supposed to get in, follow the route… Like a maze game for kids: you draw a line from the entrance to the exit, and then follow it — easy! At least, that’s what I thought. And I told everyone else: “Seriously guys, do we need a guide? We’ll have a map — can’t we figure it out ourselves?” Eventually we hired a guide, a wise decision. Our guide was an experienced guy who knew the cave inside out. Without him, we would have gotten lost, and we would have needed a rescue team to come and get us.

At one point I got stuck and I began to panic. To calm myself down, I said to myself: “If something goes wrong, they’ll come and rescue me.” But then I thought: “Okay, they come and then what? Are they gonna dig a huge hole in the cave to pull me out — swoosh! — like a UFO? No, they’ll have to crawl in and push me through, and I’ll have to squeeze through all the narrow passages behind or in front of me anyway.” So I realized that waiting for the rescue team was not a good idea, I had to make it through on my own. That was scary and spooky…

It felt like two or three hours, but in fact it was six or seven. When you’re in the dark, you lose the sense of time. At one point we decided to do an experiment: we switched off all our flashlights, and we spent several minutes in complete darkness. What a weird feeling: you lose your orientation completely, you hear all kinds of strange noises, and you’re not even sure they are real. Also, you feel your body more vividly: your heart beating, your blood flowing through your veins — I mean, the actual movement of your blood inside your blood vessels. A very unusual sensation.

I was on the verge of a panic attack about three times while I was in there. I pulled myself together and I didn’t scream, but it felt close. Crawling through the tunnels was terrible — you squeeze through and you can’t see what’s in front of you. You start crawling, and it turns left or right, and then it drops abruptly–that was the worst thing for me. I thought: “What if it’s a dead end?” I tried to back out, but that was hard, too, and I got stuck, and it felt as if there wasn’t enough air to breathe… absolutely overwhelming.
But I loved it! And I’d like to do it again.

Interviewer: I can’t imagine a claustrophobic person deliberately getting themselves into a cave. Did you stop experiencing claustrophobia after that?

Sergey Shisholik: Not really, I think I still suffer from it. But my attitude has changed: now I think I know how to calm myself down. It’s easier said than done, though, and now I’m not crawling in a cave! If I were inside one now, I’d probably have a panic attack again.

I’ve had this thing since childhood. When I was small, I tried to deal with it in my own way: I would wrap myself up in a rug, because I hoped it would help me get rid of my claustrophobia. Instead, I’d start panicking and screaming, because I couldn’t get myself out quick enough. I mean, it’s really easy to get yourself wrapped up in it by inertia, but getting out can be tricky. Anyway, that was very uncomfortable.

I’d like to go spelunking again to see how it goes — would I feel the same or would it be different? We had to squeeze ourselves through narrow passages, or press with our feet and push with our shoulders to move up–it’s slippery, and the tunnel is too narrow for your shoulders, and you can definitely panic. Without a guide who supported us and pushed us through sometimes, we would have stayed in that cave a bit longer, I guess.

Childhood

Interviewer: What kind of childhood did you have? Were you a hooligan or a nerd?

Sergey Shisholik: Both. I’m not sure you can really call me a hooligan, but as a kid I was relatively streetwise, until I got my first computer. I was nine when I got it, and I stopped spending a lot of time outside. But before that, with my friends we’d jump off garages, misbehave a bit, and get ourselves into trouble.

Interviewer: What was the worst thing you did?

Sergey Shisholik: I remember one thing. It wasn’t really bad, just a fun thing to do. When we were kids, my friends and I bought a car.

Interviewer: A Mustang, I hope?

Sergey Shisholik: Almost. Also starting with the letter M — a Moskvitch (a Soviet / Russian car produced in 1946–2001). It was a black and yellow Moskvitch–black roof, yellow body. Really cool! We used to ride it all over our district. We would also go to an abandoned airport and do this: one or two guys would get on the hood, the driver would drive fast on the runway, and then they had to brake and stop the car–without injuring anyone. My personal record while on the hood of the Moskvitch was 40 MPH. I loved riding along on the hood. Driving was fun too, but there was another guy who could drive much better than me, so we’d usually let him do that.

Sometimes we fell off sideways, while the car was still driving slow, but that wasn’t critical. And when the speed is high, you are pressed down onto the hood by the wind, so it’s easy to hold on. Also, you are well aware of the consequences if you fall, so you cling to the car as much as you can.

First computer

Sergey Shisholik: I began to play games; not outside with other kids — computer games. That was exciting. At the time I was also taking computer classes — my mum signed me up to a computer school when I was eight, and I spent two or three years there.

I had extra classes a couple of times per week. They taught us how to use Word, Excel, some basic principles of how computers operate, and later 3D modeling and video editing. Each class lasted an hour and a half, during breaks they showed us lectures about art, and then we had to write down all our comments and observations using Word. That was interesting.

So, I started computer classes at eight, and at nine my parents bought me a computer. I was so excited. Besides playing games, I wanted to know how it worked. I began learning 3D modeling when I was nine or ten, I started drawing a 3D model of my room, for example, and then I’d add some colors, and textures. Later, I got interested in programming, so I ended up spending most of my time at home, in front of the computer. I had lost interest in street life and school.

Getting a job at Miro

Sergey Shisholik: I joined Miro when I was still at school. This is how it happened: I started talking with a guy in a chat . This guy wanted to learn 3D modeling; I was 11, and I knew how to do it. So I taught him what I knew. Later, he advanced much more in this area than me. I switched to 3D engines.

I started programming when I was 11. I asked my mum to buy me a book for my birthday, it was called “С++ in 21 days”; 800 pages. I read half the book in six months, then I got stuck on one topic, and I couldn’t get to understand it for another six months. I would start reading and go like, “What the hell does that mean?”

In С++ it’s called templates. The idea is that you describe a class, and this class may work with different types of data, depending on what you indicate. And I just couldn’t get it: how can you indicate a different type of data than the one you wrote in the code? Now I understand how it works in general.

Then I asked my mum to buy me another book on DirectX. DirectX was the best driver to work with graphics. Problem was I didn’t have the SDK to write using DirectX, but the book said that it included a disk with SDK, and that’s why I bought it. But the disk had no SDK. Instead, there was a README file that said: “Sorry, guys. We couldn’t agree with Microsoft. They say we can’t sell SDK, so here’s a download link for it” — free of charge. SDK is a free thing, but if you pay for the book, you kind of pay for the SDK too, and that’s illegal. That was why they couldn’t agree with Microsoft. Anyway, they provided a download link, but Internet was really expensive at the time, $10 per 100 MB. And the SDK was about 500 MB.

Anyway, I downloaded the kit and I started programming — very simple things at first, more and more difficult as I got more proficient. My goal was to write a game. And to write a game, I needed a good engine. So I switched to writing an engine, and it took me about two years.

At 13 I learned about quaternions and the matrix of the world, how to work with matrices in general, and vectors. And when we studied at college, it was super easy for me. “Don’t you see? This is the matrix, that’s a quaternion. You multiply them and you change the matrix.”

I realized I loved writing engines more than games.

Interviewer: Did you write an engine?

Sergey Shisholik: I did, in a way: I wrote a 3D engine that could draw 3D models, and they could move according to certain laws. I added a bit of physics, and I started writing an editor. I was 15 at the time, and that’s when that guy from the Perm chat wrote to me — we’d keep in touch, from time to time. He said: “I hear you’re making a 3D engine, and I’m working for a company that needs one. Why don’t we sell your engine to my company and divide the money? I get 10% and you get the rest?” And I replied: “Okay, deal!”

We met in a café, I explained what my engine could do, he told me a little about the company. Later, they invited me to their office to show them what I had.

I was 15 at the time. I got there, I told them about my engine. And Andrey Khusid — co-founder of Miro — says, “Thanks, we’re not going to buy it, we’ve got another one already. But there’s a task that we can’t solve. If you can solve it, you get a job with us; if not, too bad and goodbye.”

And I solve it. Here is the task they gave me: they were making a multi-touch screen. The logic was that the image from the camera had to detect finger touches on a screen or a semi-transparent glass surface. The camera could detect only empty space and white dots, so you had to describe these white dots as fingers. They already had a driver written by an external contractor, and I had to connect the driver to the Quest3D engine. The driver was absolutely incomprehensible, and it was not clear how to connect it either… I suppose, they were thinking: “We couldn’t do it–he won’t be able to do it, either.” And the task was just a way to get rid of me.

I went home, and a couple of days later I went back to them with a solution: “Hey guys, look: it works.” And they go like: “Okay, what else can you do?”

First, we started working on a project basis: they’d give me a task, I’d go home and do it. I remember once I got home with a camera without its IR-filter, and two TV remote controls to send infrared signals to the camera. I remember dancing around that camera with remote controls trying to emulate finger-touches on the screen.

If you had a driver that could read images from a camera and detect finger touches, you just had to learn to work with that driver — no big deal. The hard part was connecting the driver to different software, a different system that knew nothing about drivers.

Interviewer: Looks like you’re a genius. You were 15, and you were able to do stuff that grown-up people couldn’t do.

Sergey Shisholik: Not really. Age is a relative thing, it’s just a biological concept. If you’d started programming at 11, you’d also be able to do that.

I was keen to understand how computers work: why do you move the mouse, and the cursor moves too? Why do you press a key, and the computer does what you want? I was just curious, and I learned about it. I thought: “Wow, that’s so cool! I can make my own key and it can do whatever I want. You can conquer the world by pressing a key, if you know how to program it.”

Interviewer: Are you still curious about how things work?

Sergey Shisholik: I think so. Recently we had a hackathon, and I spent three days programming non-stop. I was so happy! My girlfriend describes it like this: on a regular working day, I go to the bathroom and drink some water between meetings. If there are no meetings, I work in my room for a while, then I come out and ask her something. We talk a bit, and I go back into my room. During those three days, I didn’t come out of my room at all. Only to eat, drink, and go to the bathroom; that’s it. And every time I got out and then back in, I had a funny smile on my face.

Reflection on the company hypergrowth

Sergey Shisholik: I am 28, and I haven’t been programming for a while. I am responsible for the layer between infrastructure and back-end application code: everything that enables developers to develop the elements of our code; our internal frameworks that make developers’ life easier. We are called System Team; we are four back-end engineers, I hope we’ll grow in the future. We have already spawned another team: Delivery Team. They became an independent team to take care of releases.

Interviewer: About backend stuff: you’ve been with the company since day one, back then there were only a few back-end engineers, now there’s a few dozens of them. You told me once you’ve been through different stages of anger, rejection, acceptance… How did you cope with it and how did you find your own satisfaction in the process?

Sergey Shisholik: I don’t think it’s a specific backend thing, it’s about the company in general. In the beginning there was eight of us, and everyone was responsible for pretty much everything: backend, frontend — it didn’t matter. Everyone was involved in a bit of product, a bit of design, a bit of marketing, and so on. We did problem statement together. Then the company started growing, and hiring new people who took over some of my responsibilities.

I can’t say I was a real marketer or product manager, but in the beginning we did everything together, and that was kind of fun.

When there were 20 or 25 of us, we had our first offsite. And we said: “Well, 30 people is our limit. No more than that.” And we thought: “Wow, 30 people is a lot…” Then we outgrew 30 people, and I remember we had some new limits, slightly higher. Now we are 800, and there are no limits: the company is growing, and it will continue to grow.

The hardest part was when we exceeded 50 people. Before that I’d known everyone in the company, more or less, and we had something to talk about. And then we grew even bigger, and I started losing some of my responsibilities. Initially, I was responsible for the entire backend. In fact, there were two of us: Iliya and myself. Iliya was responsible for the canvas, I was responsible for everything else. Then we hired new people, but the two of us were still in charge of everything.

As more people join the company, your responsibility area narrows down, but it gets deeper: you have less to do, but you have to do it better. And it was hard for me to accept it. I used to write code that would impact all parts of the product, every user — Now it’s different. To begin with, I don’t program anymore… And the tipping point happened when the company hired someone to manage me. Initially, we had a flat structure, no hierarchy at all. Then Engineering Managers joined us, and we started to get hierarchical. That was hard. I felt like: “I know our business, I know the backend inside out. Why should someone else do my job?”

Now I realize I was lacking a lot of skills. I used to be an engineer, now I’m moving into management; I’m learning more about people and hiring. It doesn’t mean I know everything, but at least now I’ve got a clearer idea about it.

It was hard when Ivan joined us to become Head of Engineering. I had to report to him, share information and ideas with him. I thought: “Hey, I’ve been here since the beginning, that’s not fair!” In fact, that was a superficial feeling, that I knew everything and could do everything; in reality, that wasn’t true.

After a while I realized that new people don’t come here to take something away from you — they come here to teach you something. If everything was perfect, they wouldn’t need to hire this or that person to give them some of your responsibilities. They are here because something isn’t working right, and you can definitely learn from them.

When more experienced senior people started joining, I began to ask myself: “What am I really worth? What am I actually capable of?” I see that I have a lot to learn, so now I feel a lot better, even happier when new people join us. I look at them differently. They have valuable experience that can be useful for me, so I try to reach out to them, have a friendly chat… This kind of attitude helps me a lot: just breathe, and take it easy.

A lot of people joined us when we were already 200, and I think they also had some expectations in their mind. Now their roles have grown smaller, they are responsible for fewer things, and they probably also keep asking themselves: “Shoot, how did it happen?”

I guess it’s really important to talk to your manager on a regular basis: you should know their expectations, you should let them know what’s happening within your area of responsibility, if something is or isn’t working, what you can improve, how you can move forward. If you don’t talk to your manager, how can they possibly know about it? They can make wrong decisions. Or they may have to pull this information out of you, and that is also wrong. So communication is another skill you should develop.

And there is always room for improvement. Power is taken, it is never given. What I mean is: if you think that you can do something, do it. Don’t ask for permission. Start improving a certain area; if you do something valuable, they’ll see it and they’ll make it your new responsibility area.

Interviewer: What do you think your strengths are? What are you really good at?

Sergey Shisholik: I believe I’m good at understanding how systems work — systems in a broad sense of the term. It can be Redis, or a system of interaction between a client and a server, or cluster interactions, or maybe communication with people and understanding how they think and feel. For example, when I have a one-on-one with someone, I like to ask them questions to understand what they actually feel and think. That is very complicated, people are hard to understand. And this uncertainty and complexity motivates me a lot.

If I don’t understand how something works, I’m really keen to figure it out. Perhaps that’s my strongest point. I also know I’m not very good at public speaking or storytelling. …

I get regular feedback, every six months, as a performance review. One piece of feedback I get is that I don’t express myself very clearly; I either choose the wrong words, or tend to meander… I recorded myself several times to see how good I am… There’s a lot of room for improvement.

I said I like to make sense out of complex systems, but probably with more focus on technology. I mean, it’s easy for me to understand how technology works: I get to hear it once, and I get it. “Okay, here is how it works, here is what we’re gonna do.” Also, if there is a problem, I can respond quickly. For instance, if we have an incident, I ask the right questions, get the right answers, and figure out very quickly what we should do to fix the problem. I love doing that too, but not as much as working with complex systems.

Personal growth

Interviewer: You’ve jumped with a parachute, bungee-jumped from a high-rise block and a 134-meter platform in New Zealand. You dived with an aqualung. What was the most extreme thing you’ve ever done?

Sergey Shisholik: I suppose all those things are not as extreme for me as some real-life situations. For example, it’s extremely hard for me to meet new people. I mean, walk up to them and say: “Hello, how are you doing?” Especially when the situation is not conducive to it. Even at conferences, when you’re expected to meet others — it’s freaking hard. I have to force myself to do it. And if I come up to meet someone, and it doesn’t work out — like, this person tries to steer clear of me, or I am not interested – I get really upset. Also before I give it a go, my heart starts pounding and my hands get wet.

Even the bungee jump was not so extreme for me: “Okay, I’m going to jump, this system will support me. If something goes wrong, it won’t take long and I won’t feel much.” When I got onto the bungee platform, my fear just disappeared. They told me: “You’re next.” And I was like: “Okay, I have no fear, my turn, I’m next.” Or when I jumped with a parachute, I got into the plane, we started to go up… I jumped with a parachute three times; the third time I did it, I thought: “What the hell am I doing here, again?” The first time you’re just curious. The second time you want to see what you missed the previous time — and that’s fair, too. But why on earth did you show up a third time?”

The most exciting part is immediately after jumping out of the plane. When you can’t touch the plane anymore — that’s the best part, and the reason why you keep coming again and again.

Your fear goes away when the plane is up, the door is open and they tell you you’re next. That’s it; no more fear. You just go and jump. And when you meet a new person, your fear stays with you. I often feel awkward, I start blushing, I can’t find the right words, or I say something silly — and that really bothers me. Also, I kind of expect things to go wrong, and it makes me feel even more nervous. That’s my type of extreme, although it’s not life-threatening.

The first time I landed, I nearly broke both my legs. I wore an assault parachute, and it’s a bit different from a regular one. But that’s not a big deal. Physical risks are not as scary as social risks to me. Perhaps, this is the reason why I began to move into management: technology is more or less clear for me, but social interaction is not. And I want to understand it better to establish contacts, and to communicate more easily.

I remember, in the beginning when I had a one-on-one with my direct report, or I had to call a new hire, or do a job interview, or call someone from outside the company, I’d get tense and nervous. I’d do some preparation in advance, but when we’d start talking, I’d realize that what I had prepared was absolutely useless.

Now it’s getting better, but I can’t say it’s super easy. For example, I still feel anxious before each job interview, especially if it’s in English, because you don’t know what to expect.

Language can be a huge problem. For example, if you talk to someone who has a strong accent and you just don’t get it. What can you do in this case? It depends. That’s why I feel nervous, and I want to learn how to cope with it — kind of get more resilient and feel more relaxed.

I saw a therapist for a year, and it was great. First of all, I understood how exactly therapy can help me and in which cases I should use it. Second, he showed me what kind of person I am from the perspective of other people. It’s hard to see yourself when you live inside your body. And this person can show you who you are, only a bit differently–the way other people see you.

They have all kinds of techniques, approaches, and exercises to help you see who you are. Some situations that may happen in real life. You model them together and resolve them with your therapist. So you can see how you feel and how your mind works. We all want to look better than what we are. For instance, someone asks you what you dream about or what you want, and people answer: “I want world peace and happiness”, while in reality they may just want a new car — and that’s normal. You just need to admit it to yourself: “Looks like I want a new car. Why do I want it?”

Now I’m working with a coach, and his approach is a bit different. He’s a very unusual person, and he helps me a lot with some situations.

What’s your dream?

Sergey Shisholik: Good question, I ask myself this question from time to time. This, or maybe: “What’s my goal in life?” I used to answer: “Helping people”, but that’s too generic — I’m for good things and against bad things. Now I realize I love understanding myself better and helping others through that. I believe that the better I understand my way of thinking, my motivation, what drives me forward and so on, the better I can understand people in general. And maybe then I can help.

I had an idea to create a mobile app that acts as your therapist and analyzes your physical and mental health and, most importantly, that looks for some patterns. It has access to your calendar and health data — iPhones have such a function — your location, email, and other things. And it uses this data and information about your mood to give you recommendations: “This guy works out once a week and they meet some people; and after they work out or meet those people, they don’t feel happy anymore.”

When we get exhausted or depressed, it’s hard to see what’s actually happening with us. And we need someone to help us see, someone who might draw our attention to what’s happening. That was my idea behind designing the app.

SS: Imagine that this app is available, and that it analyzed you. Which activities would it say give you energy?

Sergey Shisholik: Traveling, definitely. I really love traveling, visiting new places, being in new, unusual situations.

Also sports. Meditation helps a lot; it helps me switch my mind. I just did the analytics for the previous year, and it turned out I meditated from May till August included, at least half a month without missing a single day. I also started running this year and did 85 km in total. In the past, I couldn’t bring myself to run even for five minutes.

What else gives me energy… I didn’t think it was important, but not I know talking to people really charges me up. Sometimes I have informal one-on-ones, when I meet interesting people and we just chat, have some fun, cheer each other up, share the vibe. I used to think this small talk is just another distraction. But here is what I realized during the lockdown: we have an eight-hour working day in the office, but we actually work less, because we need to go the restrooms, meet someone at the water cooler and have a casual conversation, or we go to the kitchen for a cup of tea and exchange a few words. So we spend an hour or two every day talking to each other–that’s quite a lot.

When the lockdown started, we lost that. Also, we didn’t have to commute anymore: you wake up in the morning, and you’re at work. In the beginning, I really loved that, because I thought I would become more productive. But as it turned out, now we’re missing a lot of things that give us energy, and instead we have things that drain it. No more exciting conversations in the kitchen; you just keep working.

The first couple of months were okay, because you saved up some energy. Then you use that up, and you discover some hidden reserves you didn’t know you even had. And then they run out, too, and you realize that it’s not as easy as you expected. You burn out, and you feel like you’re the only one who’s struggling, because everyone else is doing great, judging by their Slack messages. Then you have a one-on-one, and people share how hard it is for them, and you think: “Looks like I’m not the only one who’s having trouble.” And you realize how important this social aspect is: it gives you energy, it motivates you, it helps you see that you’re part of something bigger, and you and these other people are all on the same wavelength.

Love what you do

Interviewer: Now imagine yourself talking to your younger 15-year old Sergey Shisholik who’s trying to get a job at Miro. What would you tell him?

Sergey Shisholik: First of all, love what you do, do what you love, and understand why you’re doing it.

Second, think ahead. I remember I used to have a dream to be a programmer. Okay, I got that now. What’s next? You have to think ahead — what else do you want to achieve?

Also, probably, keep your promises. If you say you’re gonna do something, do it. Even if it’s 1 o’clock in the morning, and you’re tired and sleepy. You said you’d do it; so go do it, whatever it takes. Keep your promises. Maybe next time you’ll be wiser, and you won’t promise what you can’t do, or maybe you’ll do it before they ask you. You should get that attitude from the very beginning, when you are a child.

And, be proactive. You don’t need permission to do what you want to do; just start doing it if you like it, and see what it brings back to you. You don’t need permission for improvements. You don’t need permission to wander off the path. Go see what’s there, it might be good! ❤️