A Plesk Journey: Told By Our Two Longest-serving Employees

Elvis Plesky

4 years ago

A Plesk Journey: Told By Our Two Longest-serving Employees - Plesk

Originally released in 2000 in a city in south-western Siberia, Plesk has since grown to become one of the most popular web hosting control panels in the world. That makes 2020 not only the year of flying cars, synthetic brains, moon bases, and the Metal Rat, but also, excitingly, our 20th anniversary. To celebrate, we’re turning the focus on those who’ve helped make it all happen: our global team of engineers, managers, marketers, and all-around web experts.

In the first of the series, we meet two Sergeys. One is our Vice President of R&D, and the other one of our Program Management Leads. These guys have been with us for over 18 years—making them two of our two longest-serving employees who, between them, have pretty much seen it all.

A Chat with Sergey & Sergey

In the above interview, we ask the two Sergey’s about their journeys with Plesk and discover a few of the things they believe have made them, and our company, so successful.

I’m Sergey Lystsev, vice president of research and development and I joined Plesk like in 2001 so it’s over 18 years of me in the company in different roles.

My name is Sergey Egorov. I’ve been working at Plesk for about 18 years.

My role has actually changed several times. I started as a test engineer, then 1 or 2 months later, I switched to developer.

And starting from 2015, I’m working as lead of the program management team.

Our main goal is to make products valuable for users.

( THEY HAD A MISSION FOR PLESK )

Plesk delivers to people technology in a convenient way and they probably wouldn’t have been able to use the technology otherwise because of all the knowledge needed.

( AND ACHIEVED SO MUCH… )

last year, when I asked our users ‘what would you like to see in Plesk, like features or improvements’ and several people answered that ‘it’s hard to say’ and I asked why… and they said ‘it seemed that Plesk is almost full from functional perspective, it solves all our tasks’

Starting in 2015/2016, we are really happy to see that Plesk has a real high satisfaction rate with our customers, and that was probably like the biggest achievement.

( THEY DID IT BY LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS)

We pay a lot of attention to what users say, we have a lot of..we literally have tons of user feedback to analyze.

There are probably thousands of like requests processed every month.

We choose the requests and generate some ideas which will produce some features which will give our customers the biggest value.

( WITH A STRONG TEAM ON BOARD..))

What we really look at people – we are looking for potential. A portfolio would be good, but it’s a relatively fresh industry.

So we are taking people for how quickly they can actually learn and the best metric for us is like a kind of a forecast. What would this person be able to do in like 6 months, 12 months, 18 months.

We hire like several star level people like with all sorts of certificates and so on.

For the rest, potential is more important.

( THEY NEVER STOP LEARNING HOW TO DO BETTER)

We are visiting thematic conferences.

Also we use some online services like the Gopractice simulator. It has gamification – you are learning some aspects of product development, producing some product to market from scratch.

( NOW THIS IS THEIR ADVICE FOR YOU…)

We needed to try, to fail and learn and through that we have built quite a decent product and all of our customers they’re kind of in the same position.

Keep trying, trying new stuff, keep learning. Don’t be afraid to fail, and success will come to you.

The Biggest Achievements Across Two Decades

For instance, it’s no news that Plesk is packed full of features. But the Sergey’s explain how they not only strive to create a feature-rich product, but how they do so while keeping the needs and experience of the user front and center of the workflow.

In fact, the Sergeys mention pleasing users as one of their biggest achievements. At Plesk, whether it’s our developers and our customer service team or our beloved users, people are at the heart of everything we do. It’s only by putting people first, that we are able to create a product that has lasted 20 years and is powering strongly ahead into another decade.

It’s for this reason we love to hear the stories of the likes of Sergey and Sergey. Not only that, but we love to see new stories in the making. The Sergeys are keen to see new people join the team who have tonnes of potential so they can help them grow and watch how they flourish.

It’s such a strong commitment to helping others and growth that makes it a delight to work at Plesk. By being a part of a strong community of other passionate people, you’re able to take risks and contribute to something that’s much bigger than yourself.

Just like one of the little nuggets of wisdom Sergey, or Sergey, shares in the video:

“If you’re not afraid to fail, success will inevitably come to you.”

How long have you been with Plesk and how has that experience been? Do you have any advice to share from your experience in the industry? Let us know below!

A Chat with Sergey & Sergey

Transcript:

The Biggest Achievements Across Two Decades