Meet Wrikers: Pavel Gerasimov, Unit Manager, Vertical Solutions
Before coming to Wrike, Pavel was doing front-end and running his small startup. Check out his personal journey of going from frontend developer and CEO to Unit Manager and why he decided to join Wrike! 👇
Hey there! I’m Pavel, Unit Manager at Wrike, taking care of people, product, and processes in a dedicated product unit of three cross-functional teams. Before Wrike, I was a CEO and co-founder of Le Talo Robotics, which built autonomous self-charging drones. I’m also a former Scrum master and Front-end Development Lead. I started my IT journey in my second year of university. I have a postgraduate degree in system analysis, management, and information processing and even used to read some lectures at the university.
What made you want to join Wrike?
The amazing atmosphere and smiling people who said “Hi!” to me at least 10 times even before I got to the meeting room for my job interview. It was back in 2018, when my startup experience was over, and I was working remotely as a front-end developer. I was tired of staying remote and understood that I missed the experience of working in a big IT company after spending several years with small teams and startups. Wrike had it all. The culture in the company and my team (Planning 💚) was something that I never expected.
The culture in the company and my team was something that I never expected.
How did you become a Unit Manager?
In all of my previous teams, I was the most proactive and talkative person. That’s why they assumed I was a team leader, whatever it meant for them. In Wrike, it was different — they had some real team leaders.
After a year of being a developer, my lead offered me the role of Scrum master. I got the chance to make mistakes to understand how to work with people and love this kind of work. After a while, I got the Team Lead position, then became the front-end functional manager responsible for the same unit I now lead cross-functionally.
A big change happened for me when I took responsibility for the whole team as a Team Manager, not just for their frontend part. Then I started managing their friendly team. The last step was to go out of this role, stop doing everything with my own hands, and start thinking strategically about where and how to lead the whole unit as a Unit Manager.
How does Wrike support your career goals?
Wrike provides infinite opportunities to experiment with everything you believe in. That’s how I had the chance to try myself as a speaker, run our frontend school for interns, build a process of engineering onboarding, set up frontend interviews from the engineering side, and run a cultural transformation for the whole department. I was always trying to see what was beyond my horizon and how I could make a bigger impact — Wrike, and more importantly, all the people here, not just allow but actually support any bold undertakings.
Wrike provides infinite opportunities to experiment with everything you believe in.
What is the hardest part of your job? What is the most rewarding one?
The hardest is to work on different levels, both strategic as a unit-level manager and tactical as a team-level manager for those teams where I’m missing a dedicated person. There is uncertainty and rapidly evolving priorities, which is for sure my job to resolve at my level, but sometimes it still feels exhausting.
The most rewarding part is when I see people and teams who were burned out come to me after several months of closer work and say that they notice how things got better and feel energy and motivation to move forward. When I see how teams who were asking for a manager’s guidance on every single decision now can prioritize their work, plan a sprint, and even make some product decisions without a product owner at the meeting. When other teams and units refer to our processes and approaches, ask for advice, and implement it afterward.
How would you describe Wrike’s engineering team and culture?
First — people help each other. You can ask any question, and you’ll get some support for sure. Second — people are open to experiments and new ideas. Third — people are productive. The team can get a lot of things done together, which is a very rewarding feeling for everyone.
The team can get a lot of things done together, which is a very rewarding feeling for everyone.
And finally — people are able to work without micromanagement. Engaged engineers who proactively drive solutions, ask questions of each other and other teams, who are the best partners for their product managers when they explore or discuss solutions, who propose options, but don’t ask for guidance, who give outcomes, but not output. That’s the part of the job I’m the most passionate about, that’s how I try to build my teams — and it pays back.
How do you think the team will continue to grow and mature?
I believe the main challenge for Wrike and our product engineering team is still organizational scaling. What was working for a small setup of 10 Scrum teams was not working anymore when we introduced the concept of product units. And what was working for several independent units is challenging now when we have major cross-team initiatives. That’s a very interesting journey because it opens infinite possibilities to experiment and get a unique experience of going through such a transformation.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
I have some focused time in the mornings, where I can plan my own work and pay attention to some departmental initiatives or any action items. Then I have team standups, which I join 1–2 times per sprint for every team to stay in touch with low-level things. — I also have some 1:1 meetings with those who’re not busy at the standups right now. Then comes the sacred time of lunch with those guys from my teams who are in the office. And afterward, I have a few back-to-back calls to take care of the unit strategy and some horizontal initiatives.
Google Time Insights says that on average every month, I spend 13 hours on people management, 13 hours on team and unit level processes, about 10 hours on horizontal synchronization (with other managers, on some key projects, with HR BP, etc.), 14 hours on unit strategy with my product managers, tech leads, unit-level meetings, delivery review, plannings, etc., and 45 hours every month on meetings.
My schedule is pretty tight, but every day I manage to finish by 6 pm to spend enough time with my family.
What’s something that people would be surprised to learn about you?
I spent eight years in a music school playing brass instruments, originally French horn. Now I have two trumpets and a guitar and I am trying to learn how to play violin (so far, not so much of success).
And I got a new hobby studying world history — I try to build a comprehensive timeline across all the epochs and civilizations and give some narrative public talks in the community or on my blog about amazing nations or people who lived thousands of years ago!
If you were going to give someone who just decided to join Wrike one piece of advice, what would it be?
What I write in threads in Slack for newcomers when they join — enjoy your time here at Wrike! People work here for four, five, six and even more years, and this place becomes a big part of their life — so it can become for you. Stay open to anything new, build relationships, contribute to anything you’re the best in, help others, take care of your team, and let it be the brightest journey you’ve had so far!
