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Check out JetBrains' new R&D office in St. Petersburg

blog.jetbrains.com

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Re: Check out JetBrains' new R&D office in St. Petersburg

#61

Post by nraynaud »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #57
nraynaud wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must be quite funny to be in a company where almost nobody communicate in his native language. I've seen some russian language messages in youtrack followed by a stern response to write in english in public places. The trick is always the same, when you use english as the common language in your company, you immediately give a strong communication power to native english speakers, they always look so confident whe…

When my wife and I were traveling in China a few years ago, young people were very friendly, speaking to us in English. Perhaps they were both being friendly and practicing speaking English.

It's the same in France, my GF is from the US and everybody including me speaks to her in english also she want to improve her french. Which of course completely reinforces the cliché of the American who doesn't have a strong command of a foreign language (the best way to make a prejudice true is to act on it).

Re: Check out JetBrains' new R&D office in St. Petersburg

#63

Post by berntb »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #58
seivan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talent. By being in certain countries you exclude certain talent because of discriminatory laws. Russia for instance can forget about any talent that might be part of or supportive of LGBT. Not sure if Prague is better though, but at this moment most countries are better than 'state sponsored' national socialist attacks.

It is the funniest reason I've ever heard. There's crazy shortage of talents in Moscow and SPb, so any employee will hire a gay, a centipede from Tau Ceti or a satan and shower him with money and lots of perks if he is good in programming. However, lack of gay developers is definitely not the cause of this shortage (after all, their rights are protected by Constitution and being in top 10% of citizens by income, IT p…

He he, I remember 15 years ago when I told a friend studying economics and East Europe, that I had racist tendencies when it came to Russians -- everyone I had ever talked to for more than five minutes were an engineer or had a cultural job (musician, etc).

He coughed up some coffee and told stories about St P, the cost of life (well, the cost of death) and so on.

So, it is not dangerous now? It is good that things get better, good luck with getting rid of the present thieving criminals. If I still remembered some math, it would be fun to get a job there and see the place a bit more.

Re: Check out JetBrains' new R&D office in St. Petersburg

#64

Post by JanezStupar »

systems wrote: post #43

why do they need such a big office, i also didnt know they make this kind of money but seriously , this must have cost several millions, why spend so much on office space!!

Currently they have 300 engineers, they plan that this office will hold 500. I see nothing too extravagant about that?

Re: Check out JetBrains' new R&D office in St. Petersburg

#65

Post by chiph »

systems wrote: post #43

why do they need such a big office, i also didnt know they make this kind of money but seriously , this must have cost several millions, why spend so much on office space!!

JetBrains is an example of what happens when you build a product that lots of people like, and then charge a reasonable price for it. It's easy to convince a boss to buy a tool when it's not a bazillion dollars.

Re: Check out JetBrains' new R&D office in St. Petersburg

#68

Post by altero »

seivan wrote: post #7
skrebbel wrote: post #5

Does anyone know why JetBrains, which seems to very much be a Russian company, has their head office in Prague?

Talent. By being in certain countries you exclude certain talent because of discriminatory laws. Russia for instance can forget about any talent that might be part of or supportive of LGBT. Not sure if Prague is better though, but at this moment most countries are better than 'state sponsored' national socialist attacks.

I think you have no idea about situation Czech Republic and Russia. Work Law is influenced by socialism and way more friendlier to worker.

Any discrimination based on sexual preferences, sex, race, age and so on is strictly forbidden. One could sue for an ad which says they want 'younger' workers. Gay discrimination would be national scandal. There is also handful of agencies which are very keen to enforce Work Law.

There is violence against LGBT, but most cases are severely punished by state. What is 'war on drugs' in US, is 'war on neonazis' in Czech Republic.

I would suggest other subjects for discussion. For example the gay rape in US prison is widely accepted, comedians even joke about it on TV.

Re: Check out JetBrains' new R&D office in St. Petersburg

#69

Post by cema »

nraynaud wrote: post #50
CmonDev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect it to be exotic? Russia is not Asia culturally, it's not East in any way except for geography.

Their traditional architecture is way different than the ones from Prague or Paris, they have a different traditional religion, they have been isolated from the western world for 80 years. But I don't know their culture well enough to know what would be typical and different from the west. I would not try to generalize Asia anyways, because Siberia, Saudi Arabia, India and Japan are all there and all completely diffe…

St Petersburg was built as a European imperial city, and architecturally it is still very much that. (Outskirts are different, just like in Paris.) Religion (Orthodox Christianity) and script (Cyrillic) are different from the Western and Central Europe, true, but culturally it's a vibrant mix of different European and different Asian (especially Central Asian) influences. The isolation you mentioned did happen but it was not total, and I would say in some respects (especially scientific) there was less isolation then than, say, before the XIX century.

Re: Check out JetBrains' new R&D office in St. Petersburg

#70

Post by csmuk »

JanezStupar wrote: post #66
csmuk wrote: post #16

So that's where our license fees are going...

Honestly, most of JetBrains license value can be recovered within a week. I find their license prices to be extremely reasonable.

TC yes.

R# no. On a large solution it becomes a hindrance.

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