Interview with Vitaly Hornik - COO at XB Software

Welcome to this exclusive interview with Vitaly Hornik, the COO of XB Software. 

Thank you, Vitaly for accepting our invitation.

With over 14 years of experience in custom software development, Vitaly has played a pivotal role in the company's success and growth. As XB Software approaches its 15th-anniversary milestone in June, we have the privilege of gaining insights from Vitaly about the company's journey, accomplishments, and future plans. 

Hello Vitaly! Welcome to TechBehemoths. Please tell us about yourself. Your childhood, education, and professional development.

Hello, Cristina! Thank you for the opportunity. Looking at my background, I spent my childhood in the USSR. I participated in various youth movements popular at that time, engaged in sport activities. I was a young naturalist. It may sound funny, but I had 3 home fish tanks. I used to breed fish and sell it at a discount. Also, I used to breed common parakeets in high school and sell them at a market square, also at a discount. Considering that I was just a child, I wasn’t able to compete with adults for a place at a market or retail equipment. That’s why I sold everything at a discount. The price I set was the key factor that helped me to stand out.

Cherry on the cake – I kept fish natural live food, like worms and sludge worms, in the fridge. Moreover, I froze mosquito larvae in the freezer to be able to feed fish in winter. I appreciate my mom for allowing me all these shenanigans, for allowing me to try myself in different spheres. Well, I don’t know how she agreed to that. However, all that shaped my approach to life – if you want something, then you are the one who should pursue it, and don’t be afraid.

After I enrolled at lyceum, studies absorbed all of my time. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t interested in programming at that time. But, I can say for sure that the tasks from the Kvant magazine [magazine in physics and mathematics for school students and teachers] were my favorite. Dealing with complicated tasks from the Physics Institutes was also so exciting for me that I couldn't stop until I found the solution. And, I was so happy when I was finally able to solve each of them. But after I enrolled at the university and understood how programming helps to solve scientific tasks, I started to enjoy it. I got a Ph.D. in IT (Computer Science), worked as a developer and technical project manager, took courses in PMI and Tallinn School of Management. And so, as you can see, for the whole 30 years, it has been a part of my life.

The first half of these years, I coded myself, and the other 15 years, I have been managing those who know how to code. It turned out that one needs absolutely different skills, because the origins of these tasks are different. You see, when you take programming, all tasks are linear. I mean that 2 plus 2 equals 4. Always. No matter the programming language or computer. But when you manage people, your tasks won’t be linear. The same impact on different people can lead to different outcomes. And, moreover, the solution can be influenced by the time as well. If you compare it with programming, it’s the same if the answer for 2+2 depends on the programming language, the moment you deal with it, and the computer you use to find the solution. 

I realized I had to power up my management skills by reading books on psychology, management, brain functioning, and the ones about mind traps. I think that after all these years of reading, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Daniel Kahneman, and Vasiliy Chibisov are those who affected me the most. At the moment, I am trying to digest the ideas and thoughts of Alexander Fridmann about the regular management.

Congratulations on XB Software's upcoming 15th anniversary! How does it feel to have reached this milestone in the custom software development industry?

Thank you, it’s a significant date for us! Looking at the route our custom software development company has made, I feel satisfied with how each of us changed. Particularly due to these changes, we are here. At the beginning, we knew very little. We were failing, we were looking for solutions. But then, we decided to improve our project management processes by creating the Procedures and Regulations document relying on the knowledge we gained from the PMI. Now, we have different documents that help us to deal with various aspects of our professional activities. Thanks to the variety of the operations we have now, we feel more confident in our niche. We have also managed to improve general management processes relying on the knowledge we gained from Vladimir Tarasov’s Tallinn School of Management. Despite the achieved success, we continue to improve ourselves and learn how to minimize the efforts in reaching goals. As a result, we are able to lower the costs of services and increase our visibility. 

Can you tell us about the journey of XB Software over the past 15 years? What have been the key factors contributing to its success and growth and what challenges do you face?

Well, 15 years ago, we were programming specialists who found the need to do something more than just coding. This is how it all began. With this very need. And, then we started to put effort into our work. Despite the fact that the world is changing rapidly, human nature remains the same - we need to always push ourselves. The 10,000-hour rule hasn’t been changed into the 5,000-hour rule. You still have to spend a lot of time and effort to become a skillful expert. Thus, by pushing and improving ourselves, we were able to reach success. 

The key factor of this success is to understand that you need not only to learn and work but also have willingness to do so in order to achieve something. For example, a client needs some help with a project. We are working on it but stuck halfway through, we are looking for new knowledge, find it, use it to deal with the encountered challenge, then we check the result. And thus, while we help our client, we can also gain new experience and grow. This is how we work. However, the hardest step in this loop is when you are searching for new knowledge. Until you test the result, you can’t say for sure that you really gained this new knowledge. Sometimes, you need to take a step back and search again, because the solution you’ve found earlier didn’t bring you the result you were expecting. Unfortunately, not everybody is ready for this process. Sometimes, it’s hard to find good employees that will be smart, active, and conscientious.

In your opinion, what sets XB Software apart from its niche competitors? 

Employees and processes created with their help. In our company, each employee has their right to be heard and to be able to suggest changes in the processes. Earlier, I mentioned our Procedures and Regulations document. This is our main project management document. Despite it being created by several people for the most part, many employees regardless of their experience suggested and are still reviewing and suggesting updates to the document. As a result, we have those who initiated the creation of this or other documents, but all of us can be considered their authors. I think this is our most valuable principle. Thus, everyone has freedom to speak their mind without being afraid of their superiors. Nobody throws their weight about. Even an inexperienced employee may see nuances that others don’t and share them openly. This is what we value and what sets us apart from the competitors.

XB Software offers a wide range of software development services and also has its own products. How do you balance between client projects and developing your own products?

Good question! Well, we have departments that have employees with corresponding skills and technology expertise. I think this is how it is in any company. But at the same time, we practice exchanging employees between departments. On one hand, it allows the exchange employees to make their tasks diverse, while on the other hand, it helps others to enrich their expertise. Thanks to this approach, the employees from the product departments better understand how successful their components function while being implemented in a developed solution. They see which upgrades should be made to increase product visibility and demand. And, those employees that participated in a product development know better about its layout and are able to use it more effectively during the project execution. We are not balancing and spending our efforts, we complement and strengthen each other.

With over 14 years of experience in custom software development, what significant changes have you observed in the industry during this time, and how has XB Software adapted to these changes?

In 2000, I released my very first commercial project for a foreign customer. That time, I felt like a seven-armed paperhanger, being a PM, BA, developer, database engineer, DevOps engineer, and an information security specialist. The only task I haven’t done was the creation of visual elements, drawing in general is not my thing at all.

Everything seemed to be small-scale back then. However, over time, computers became more and more powerful, and clients’ requests became more and more sophisticated. Technologies became refined, and projects grew in size. There was a time when showing how to upload a file on a web server wasn’t easy, and you needed to be crafty. But now, it’s so obvious. 

Nowadays, one can run into other problems. For some, it can be difficult to comprehend the changes caused by the broad usage of AI. Some businesses push the changes forward, while others fight back. But, you cannot deny the fact that AI is out there and it will impact our life and change it beyond recognition. The same way that typography or electricity changed the world. It’s hard to imagine a city without electricity nowadays.

The last 200 years the world is changing constantly, and its speed is increasing. I think that we need to be open to changes and be able to adapt and to seek benefits in following these changes. You need to be able to learn and improve constantly. For me, being able to adapt means that you learn new things and change yourself. 

Looking back at your journey with XB Software, what are you most proud of? 

Well, we reached a lot. Some of our dear clients have been working with us for more than 5 years, others – for more than 10. More than 4 years is the average work experience of our employees.

Usually, when we begin a new project with a customer, they expect long-term cooperation. They are sure that the team will be the same a year later, and they won’t need to start everything over. As in any business, not all of our products were successful, however, our success rate is higher in comparison with the average success rate in the industry. So, we are doing really well, I would say!

What do you like to do when you are not working?

In my free time, I like doing sports, gardening, and reading books. As a kid, I wanted to do boxing, but there weren’t any boxing gyms in my hometown. At least, I was able to start doing martial arts. But nowadays, I have a boxing gym near my house, and, with great pleasure, I’ve been doing boxing for several years now.

Also, I have a garden and I’m growing flowers. As I said earlier, I had home fish tanks as a kid. So, I remember how I cultivated aquatic plants, such as Vallisneria and Victoria amazonica, in it, and they were successfully blooming under my supervision. They required clay and sterilized turf that should be placed under the roots. Now, I also have some interesting plants in my garden. For example, this is one of them:

This is a really rare plant for our area. I like to help them to grow, water them, and nourish the soil.

I think that cultivating plants and managing people are two very similar tasks. To reach the required results, I have to provide conditions for the growth and evolution. Forcing through moves me away from the result, but weeding from time to time is vital.

As for the reading, I try to catch up. I try to diversify the books I read. One time, it’s a nonfiction book, another time, it’s a fiction one. I think that books help to understand the world better, to find out how to be in harmony with it. They help you to understand that you don’t need to resist the world but rather lean on it when achieving your goals. And turn it from the source of unexpected events into a pivot.

What are your plans and goals for the future of XB Software? How do you envision the company evolving in the coming years?

We are already standing firm on the current “level”, and we want to move forward and make the next step. I mean that we want to be even closer to a client: be near them, see the world like them, think like them. This way, we will be able to understand how to deal with the issues they have beforehand. 

There are cases when a client already comes with a solution, and, unfortunately, it’s not always possible to see how effective it will be. This is the time when we can “wear their boots” and better comprehend the situation together to suggest an optimal technological solution. We aim at being as close to our customers as possible. 

If you had the chance to go back in time, what is the one piece of advice you would give to Vitaly Hornik from 2013?

Looking back at 2013, I don’t have any. Lessons were learned, and little missteps weren’t able to influence the results of today. But looking back at the years prior, I would say only two words to myself – “Read books!” I read very few of them when I was younger. Because of that, I had issues with managing people. I spent too much time with math and physics, I read Kvant magazine backwards and forwards, and I thought that the whole world is also linear. How wrong I was. Most of the literature passed by me, and now, I think that one needs to read at least 10 books a year. And, if you have the desire and opportunity to read more, do it.

If you like this interview and think that Vitaly and his team can help your business don't hesitate to contact them via TechBehemoths or get in touch with Vitaly on LinkedIn