Corporate life

I received an invitation to work at Innopolis University as a Director Assistant in early 2017, while still being on a maternity leave. By this time, I had already heard a lot about Innopolis University as a unique place that not only teaches students, but also implements scientific and industrial projects. I had a lot of experience in office & protocol management in the banking field, but I had no experience in the proposed position in education, so I decided that this was a great time to try something new and step out of the usual comfort zone.

As a Director Assistant, I noticed how I could use my experience to improve work processes at the University. Development of a regulatory framework for document management, automation of documents uploading from 1C — these and other ideas were implemented together with colleagues from the Department of Education Quality Assurance, IT Department and my team of the Department of Protocol and Records Management, which I was entrusted to lead by the management.

Innopolis University grew right before my eyes and I grew up with it. I came here in 2013 as a system administrator. At that time, the University only had 15 employees. We were based in several rooms on a Trade Union street in Kazan.

In 2015, we moved to Innopolis. We were most impressed by the architecture of the University campus. And the main building turned out even better than on the layouts. The more projects the University had, the more people started to come in.

The University employs professional and very versatile people. For instance, you can meet your colleague in a sport complex in the morning, in the university library in the afternoon and play quiz game with him in the evening. Internal corporate training is organized for employees, colleagues share their experience and knowledge in their fields. This helps to grow not only professionally, but also develop different soft skills.

From the very first day of my work at the University I closely communicated with colleagues and tried to learn something new, and the head of the department noticed it. As the department was growing, so were my responsibilities. In 2016 my role turned to Technical Support Group Coordinator with 4 people in our team. 3 years later I became the Head of the Information Technologies Department. I am sure that my growth would not have been possible without interaction with colleagues and continuous self-development. Not once in my entire career have I regretted that I once went for an interview at Innopolis University. I have met a lot of interesting people, had exciting work, faced ambitious and challenging tasks.

What was my idea of Innopolis before I met it? It looked empty, with lots of further work to do. But when I arrived I saw that behind this small and seemingly powerless city lies everything that all of us need. Here you can not only see the birth of ambitious projects, but also be their creator; you are exposed to unlimited opportunities for your development. And when you develop, everything around you develops.

I joined a small team with a huge number of tasks. We became one of the largest laboratories in one year. To say that it was difficult during this time is not to say anything. None of our days are like the previous ones, we have to study every stage of development and keep this pace. When mail.ru Group challenged us to create a prototype of an unmanned car for the metropolis with a deadline of 3 weeks, everyone understood that this was a chance that should not be missed. We accepted this challenge, met this deadline and had a success!

Innopolis University is small in size, but large in its uniqueness. Here we have an immense space for imagination, we can solve big problems, develop our potential. The goal that I'm trying to reach here with this team is not just implementing R&D, not just developing prototypes. Our goal is to change the course of people's lives, their habits, their thinking, to make people's dream of unmanned transport a reality.