From Developer to Manager: Don't Judge People by Yourself

This second conversation resumes Vadim Goncharov's story after design school. He leads games, special projects, and gamification at T-Bank; the episode follows his shift from engineer to manager. Before the bank, a year at a US startup made him want to build for his own environment.

Vadim joined Tinkoff as a front-end engineer in 2017, volunteered to help Tinkoff Journal, and became its technical leader. The team moved the journal from WordPress to Django, split the platform by domain, and launched an educational product and an app. Vadim learned to gather stakeholder expectations, set direction, and contribute hands-on.

Team growth exposed mistakes: Vadim centralized decisions, delegated poorly, and burned out. Special projects gave him a fresh start. The unit combines bank products, marketing, interactive experiences, and games for acquisition and loyalty. Over time, the team learned to ship complex campaigns, casual games, and a permanent games section.

The second half covers T-Bank courses, Skolkovo, DISC, the Process Communication Model, and Belbin roles. Vadim shows how he thinks about team composition while stressing that models are lenses, not diagnoses. Managers must see strengths and motivations, combine complementary roles, and test decisions in practice.