What does it take to survive and thrive in a fast-paced IT startup that is transforming technology and the way people do business? A bunch of dedicated, inspired, diverse individuals. The longer I work at Insolar, the more I am amazed by my colleagues. They are extremely reliable and hard-working, but also fun-loving and sometimes even quirky.

Developers are the architects of our products and the life-blood of our company. Every day, I traverse their ranks — and they are invariably deeply submerged in their work — like a kind of meditation. You could even say that they have their own special daily culture. In the Marketing Department, we are in another world. So I decided to ask them about what motivates them and what it’s like to work in Development at Insolar.

Pavel Scherbinin, our Chief Technical Officer, is a pretty impressive person. Though very young, he has over ten years of top experience developing large scale high load systems, and was CTO at the largest IT company in Russia. Though he carries huge responsibility, he always wears a smile and shows his sense of humor. He also goes to the gym every day — and you can tell.

Lesley: Pasha, Insolar has very ambitious plans — do you have any advice for devs on how to deal with stress? What do you do when you get up in the morning to start your work day?

Pasha: “First of all, ‘stress’ is only in someone’s head. You and only you decide how your day goes — so I say, ‘Go ahead and take the driver’s seat’. I get up at 6:00 am every day. The first thing I do is drink a glass of water. Then I do yoga, meditate, and take a cold shower. I eat a high-protein breakfast and read a book. I walk to work and use the time to listen to interesting podcasts — it’s physical activity and personal development at the same time.”

Lesley: There are all kinds of observations that devs are a special kind of people. When and why did you guys decide to become developers — what motivated you?

Masha: “At university, I studied to become an engineer in telecommunications technologies, and started learning both software and hardware. In the process, I realized that I prefer program development, and dove into that on my own. For me, development is a constant process of learning and changing, and in the modern world, it’s software products that are radically changing the world and improving people’s lives.”

Andrey: “When I was little, I played with electric circuits, not toy soldiers. I always liked to invent and was drawn to technology, so naturally it led me to programming. I was creating video games back at university when I realized that I have more fun making than playing them. A couple of months later I scored a part time job as a developer.

They say programmers use methods no one understands, to solve problems no one knew existed. But jokes aside, there’s some truth in that. Essentially, a developer is a problem solver. If you would enjoy spending a day cracking riddles, you are a typical dev. I certainly would.”

Pasha: “I would add to that — what many people do not understand is that programming is not just a solution to mathematical problems… It’s a creative process — like painting, designing architecture, choreography, sculpting. Also, you have to enjoy being social — we have lots of meetings and coordination is key.”

Lesley: That’s an interesting take — development is both left and right-brained, an exact science and creativity. So is it possible to describe a ‘standard’ work day in the life of a dev? Is there such a thing? If not, give us an example of the typically atypical…

Dima: “My work day begins with reading work mail, our intranet tool Slack, and checking the calendar for important appointments. At the beginning of the day, we have general and intra-team meetings to coordinate problem solving and plan work on critical tasks, if any. After that, we work on a pre-designed weekly development plan. Of course, everything becomes much more complicated when unexpected challenges pop up, and sometimes it can take days to study the symptoms and find the source of the problem.”

Denis: “The work of a programmer is an emotional roller coaster. One minute, you’re in a terrible mood, because for 3 days you have been looking for the problem in your own code.

Then, you discuss the problem with a colleague, and you might find the problem in just half an hour — so today, you’re gonna sleep peacefully. And sometimes, you find a solution to a difficult problem that your colleagues have been arguing about for a week — and that’s incredibly cool! Development is a team game, and every day is different thanks to your colleagues’ inventiveness. That’s why it’s interesting, that’s why I do it.”

Lesley: Obviously, since development is a creative process, you can never predict when bugs will appear. What’s the biggest tech challenge that you have worked on related to blockchain?

Andrey: “Imagine playing a game with your friends. Each player has a certain amount of money and can publicly announce a transfer to another player. The task is to record all transfers in your notebook.

Because transfers can happen faster than any single player can write, each player only writes transfers for certain people. The player on Position 1 records transfers for Alice and Bob, the player on Position 2 for Charlie and Dan, etc.

Now imagine that during the game, players must switch positions every 10 seconds. Also, any player can leave or join the game at any time. The trick is to figure out a way to ensure that each player records their transfers, while no one records them twice, and to be able to find any transfer that happened in the past.

This scenario roughly explains one of the challenges in distributed systems like blockchain. To make the tech valuable, we have to ensure its reliability. If the system ever loses money or throughput is insufficient, it holds no value.”

Lesley: Why did you decide to focus on blockchain in particular — what makes it interesting and appealing?

Pasha: “It’s exciting to be at the source of something as new and promising as blockchain. You solve problems and overcome difficulties like a seafaring pioneer. On to new lands!”

Denis: “Personally, I am excited about the scope of what blockchain can do. It can be used to improve a number of business operations. At Insolar, one of our particular strong points is supply chain. This is one of the most challenging kinds of ops, because it involves multiple parties and processes, and at the same time, is very intransparent. This creates real risks which translate into high costs. Example: You are an automotive producer, and you are exporting parts to the assembly sites overseas. You need to be sure that Letters of Credit are in place and shipments are paid on time — this can cause serious liquidity issues for businesses. You have a lot of cargo ships doing the transportation, but you do not always know where they are, why they were delayed — or worst-case scenario — disappeared. By uniting all the players with blockchain and synergetic technologies, these issues can be solved. That has very concrete benefits and impact for business. Another example is provenance tracking of branded good so that they cannot be stolen or faked — which costs companies huge amounts of money and image damage.

Dima: Right. Blockchain is key for strengthening business. It’s an inevitable technology. Just think of resisting internet. What company could possibly have a chance today if it does not use internet? We’re going to see the same thing with blockchain. And the first movers and implementors will have the advantage — that goes for both tech companies like Insolar and their business clients. Plus, Insolar is developing the most cutting edge blockchain tech for business. So it’s pretty exciting to be part of spearheading these developments.

But I think that blockchain is not just about corporate and profit. It also has very real social benefits to improve people’s well-being. One example is the Transactive Energy System that Insolar is working on — it fights climate change by promoting the use and storage of renewable energy for electricity. Obviously, that’s good for everyone — both for industries like automotive that can reduce their carbon footprint — and for the environment. Another example is using blockchain for clinical trials and documenting patients’ medical care. The consumer gets better healthcare because records are complete and doctors see their whole history. Blockchain can improve the quality of life.

Lesley: Even though it’s a young company, Insolar has a very distinct and conscious corporate identity and values. What do you value most about Insolar’s corporate culture?

Denis: “For me it’s a tie between two values — ‘One Team’ and ‘Focus on Results’. They are closely related. A strong team gets the best results — and so it also attracts the best specialists, who in turn achieve strong results.”

Pasha: “‘Radical Transparency!’ — You can agree or disagree with any opinion, convey your point of view freely — and know that your opinion will always be heard and taken seriously — no matter who you are and what position you hold.”

What do you think makes Insolar special among blockchain companies in particular, and as a company in general?

Andrey: “For me, one of the most important things in any company is working on challenging tasks with intelligent people. While difficult problems are regular features in any industry, a team of professionals who work well together is a rare gem, which Insolar happens to represent.

As far as blockchain goes — when you travel into uncharted territory, it’s very important to know the direction. Insolar has one of the strongest blockchain teams anywhere, and one of the most reasonable visions of the tech’s capabilities on the market. We are building our products around that.”

Pasha: “Exactly. First of all, we are not creating a new blockchain platform just for the sake of technology. We are solving the critical real-life problems that business is faced with. We have a very strong team in all areas — Marketing, Product, Development, Management.

Lesley: Blockchain tech is pretty complex and uncharted, and it’s evident that you are all convinced by its virtues; you are working very hard to optimize it to unfold this potential for business use. What do you think blockchain can do to improve the world?

Masha: “Blockchain is comparable to the next internet — but likely to be much bigger in its impact when it reaches scale. It will connect people in an unprecedented way, and increase the security of data — whether public or personal — by encrypting and storing it on immutable distributed ledgers. This is its essence, and that can be applied in many ways to protect people, minimize risks, and save businesses money. In itself, data documentation also represents a use case. Think of securing personal identity and ‘Know your Customer’, for instance. Blockchain will do for data flows between entities what ERPs did for data flows within them.