🤲🏽 🏵️ 🚠 How I moved to London with Revolut 🍮 🗼 🦋

A week ago Dmitry Mikhailovich spoke on our social networks. Dmitry is a product developer, he solves product problems at Revolut, while being a Senior Backend developer. A year and a half ago, he moved to the London office and shared with us his story of how it happened, how the quarantine in the UK goes, as well as a few insights into how one of the most interesting fintech projects works.

We share with you the transcript and recording of the interview

My name is Dmitry Mikhailovich, I work at Revolut. Formally - backend software engineer, informally - I will tell you further. I will tell a little about my history of moving, about Revolut, in general about what banks, EMI, my history of opening bank accounts in London, about what I like about Revolut, and a few words about product development - what it is, and why I want to pay special attention to this.

I joined Revolut in 2018. I just turned 28, and in the first week of June I came to Revolut. I wanted to complete my previous work symbolically. The interview process was pretty funny; I heard about Revolut several times: I am a member of the Phystech groups, and Revolut was also featured on Habré. I went to JPoint - a Java developer conference - and saw the Revolut booth. The name was familiar, and I went over to chat. At the stand were the guys from the Physics and Technology Department. We got to talking, left contacts to each other.

After JPoint I had a vacation. Funny as it may seem, I went to London for the first time; it was interesting, and friends lived here. Saturday - JPoint, and on Monday I flew to London, drove to the apartment and connected my laptop. The first message from Bogdan, a man from the Revolut stand, was: "Dima, do you want to relocate to London?" For me, it turned out to be a funny and symbolic story; I laughed, I didn't have an instant answer, but I thought. Then I started interviewing at Revolut; at interviews I said that I would rather go to Moscow, but London is also interesting. I got a job in Moscow. But as I started working, the realization came to me: although a lot of development is taking place in Moscow, HQ is located in London, and if I want to achieve something within this company, I need to move closer to the main movement. I thought it was importantand already on probation (he was here for 3 months) was on a business trip to London, talked here and said that I wanted to move. They answered me: you seem to be a normal guy, let's move, you will write code here. Back then, getting approval for the move was easy; I talked to the CTO, he gave his approval.

If the approval was easy, then the process of moving at Revolut had not yet been worked out. It took about six months from the moment I received the approval to the move - I moved in early March, and received the approval in August. The process was long on both sides; Revolut was a startup, the processes were being worked out, and I myself slowed down: do I need it. I wasn't sure. After I received the offer (I'll tell you more about it), I doubted for a long time. Then I was asked on Habré - how I evaluate the offer, salaries. I doubted specifically because of my history: I was born in the Moscow region, studied there (in Dolgoprudny), never lived more than 30 km from my parents, and once every 1-2 weeks I came to visit. What normal boys and girls do at 16-18 years old, I had to do at 28. Plus, an offer to London: I talked to several friends, and they said,that London is an expensive city. For a year and a half of my life here, this opinion has not changed. I was then given a rough estimate: for the same level of comfort as in Moscow, you need to get your hands about twice the salary. And the offer didn't have that much.

I looked at it; I have a two-year-old (at that time) son and wife, and the standard of living will have to be lost. I began to doubt - it seems to be good in Moscow. But I thought that I would always have time to return; in a pinch, an adventure. And I went.

When they ask me what was difficult when moving to London, I answer: the most difficult thing is to come to an agreement with yourself. I remember this moment well; at every stage of the move there were many doubts, fears, and misunderstandings. But I left the visa center on Kurskaya with three passports (mine, my wife's and my child's) with stamps and I realized: I can go. It was a very strong emotion, I still feel it.

This was in February; then red tape began. It was necessary to understand where exactly to move, what will happen at the time of the move. Revolut bought tickets for the whole family, bought extra luggage. I agreed that they would pay me to send one box by mail - I really did not want to carry a stroller and a couple of additional luggage. Revolut then paid for Airbnb for the first month. When we were choosing an area in London, when we were still in Moscow, for some reason we stopped at Stratford - this is the northeast. In fact, it turned out to be ridiculous: while walking from the metro, we came across two East European stores and one sign “ACCOUNTANT”. In the store nearest to us, the saleswoman spoke Russian, even homeless people near the station yelled in Russian. As if he never left Moscow.

After living on Airbnb for a month (during which we chose a permanent location), we moved to the other side of London - southeast, Beckenham, one of the best green family neighborhoods. I would also like to emphasize what he bribed me with. There is such a beautiful phrase - “a boy can be taken out of Korolev, but Korolev cannot be taken out of a boy” (in the original it was about a girl, but it doesn't matter). I am not a Muscovite, I am a Moscow region; I went to school in Korolev, every day I got to work in an hour by train and subway, and it seemed to me that it was normal. And now everything is also normal and acceptable. I didn't want to be within walking distance of work; for me, it was more important where the child will walk, how good parks (in the future, kindergartens and schools) will be available. It was necessary to have a large area available.

Therefore, we chose this area; I get to work in 40-50 minutes. It's very green, which is very cool. In general, London is a very stone city; Petersburgers laugh, but when I was on a business trip and lived close to the office, it was difficult for me to find a normal place to run. I had to run over the stone. But it is very green here, there are parks everywhere, even the sidewalks are separated by a green strip from the roadway, I know that there are the same steep areas in the north, but I ended up in the south.

I wanted to tell you about the kindergarten separately. Schools are free in the UK - it's true; start at age 4, really free. Before that - a kindergarten. Nobody pays for kindergarten under 3 years old; a bit different: if both parents are working and both are UK or EU citizens, then 15 free hours per week are given. In our case (three Russian passports) up to 3 years, nothing is paid, and in the Canary Wharf area, where the office is located, a kindergarten can cost 1,700 pounds. That's 170,000 rubles a month, that's a hell of a lot. And in the area where we live, there will be 1200-1300-1400 per month - up to 3 years; still high prices - especially considering that only me work. My son is already 3 years old this summer and we were able to get 15 free hours. I'm not sure how this is graduated, but the price goes down after 3 years. The price is now around £ 1000 - still a lotalthough not that much.

Another important point for those with family. My wife is not a techie; She graduated from a good linguistic university, she has excellent English, which I do not have, but this does not help her find a job in her specialty. This is a private case, but after the decree, Masha did not work in Russia, and here they looked askance at her resume: the person after the university worked a little and did not work for two years, what is it? Very few people here give birth before the age of 30, this is to some extent related to the prices for kindergarten. They give birth immediately in turns: for example, three children aged 35-37-39 years. We see this among the locals; that is, no one is in a hurry to do it before. So my wife's resume looks odd by local standards. But everything was resolved quite interestingly: Maria is now completing her master's degree at a local university and starts looking for a new job.

Regarding the salary: as I said, I was not offered twice as much. Fortunately, a few months after the move, Revolut made a powerful re-indexing of salaries in London; all the same, it did not become twice as large, but relative order came. It is important to understand that in my beloved city, Korolev, I did not rent an apartment; there was an old parental apartment in which we felt comfortable. But here housing is a big expense. If in Moscow it was enough for me to live well, maintain a car and pay a nanny, then there is no such financial calm here.

Of course, this raises the question: what, then, did I forget in London. Actually, I'm in London because I'm curious about it. I have lived in the Moscow region for 28 years and have not seen anything else. I want to see this city again; I will always have time to return.

By the way, my contacts will remain on Habré. You can ask questions.

About banks. When I for the first time, at JPoint, talked about Revolut, they said to me: “cool fintech, everything is top, articles”. We will talk about articles later, but then I asked: what exactly is cool? There is already Rocketbank, Tinkoff, others - well, it turns out another fashionable bank. At that time I did not yet understand some of the European peculiarities; I understood only when I moved.

Q: did the whole family move at once?

The whole family at once. We thought that if I go alone and look for something there, it will be more difficult. Plus, I'm very glad we moved together because my wife's English is much better than mine; communicating with different state agents after moving is a very painful matter, and even now I do not always understand them on the phone. I am very grateful to my wife for taking this part on herself.

Q: was there any attitude towards migrants on the part of the locals, were there any difficulties?

None. In general, I rarely see the British themselves in London. The landlords, of course, are British, but there are a lot of visitors. Everyone is calm.

Back to the banks. When I arrived in London and finally signed the papers here, I realized (which is logical) that I need to get a local bank account for my salary. Then a rather interesting story began. When you come to the bank, they say: you need not just an address of residence, but a proof of address. Usually this is some kind of utility bill - a water bill, or a council tax, or another document in which your name, surname and residence address are written. A lease is fine too. It's clear that the first month I lived on Airbnb, and there was no such confirmation. It turns out that in order to check in somewhere, you need to set up a direct debit from a bank account: that is, to check in, you need an account, but in order to make an account, you need to check in! Everyone talks about this at the beginning, for some reason; although, if you dig deeper, there is also a contract with the employer - that is,you can provide the bank with a paper from the employer stating that you are employed as a permanent employee (there must be a surname, name, the word permanent and address), then such paper will suit them, and you can open an account.

In Russia, I had accounts in a large number of banks - about 6 (interestingly, Rocketbank was not among them). Here my first thought was that fashionable fintech should be opened, and it should not only be Revolut; and also - open an account in some old, well-known, reliable bank (like Sberbank). At that time, the main, noisy competitors of Revolut were Monzo and N26; accordingly, in the first couple of days I downloaded their applications and started designing. Tellingly, the provision of proof of address is easier for them - everything is done in a mobile application. For Monzo, the process took 15 minutes; profile, photo, photo with a passport. After another 15 minutes, a notification came about the passage of identity verification and approval of the provision of services. The N26 was a little more difficult. The questionnaire was less convenient and took longer to complete, the notification came the next day.For obvious reasons, I won't talk about Revolut (but in general, it's like Monzo's).

In parallel with these neo-banks, I went to Barclay's - one of the big old banks. The branch was found not far from work. I came and said that I want to open an account; I was immediately asked for the necessary documents, including PoA. And then they said: now we need to make an appointment, in that queue. The queue was small, but at first I did not understand what the appointment was. I was told that I had all the original documents in order; and then it turned out that the next appointment in this branch of the bank is in three weeks, "but you can try your luck in other branches." This is despite the fact that an appointment is not even an account opening yet; When you come to their office for an appointment, you fill out a questionnaire, and then they do a check - the same, it seems, that Monzo did in 20 minutes (and in N26 - in a day). And only after that - in another week or two - it will be possible,finally, open an account. And if you want a little faster, you will have to run all over London in search of a branch in which there is no queue in order to get an appointment not in three weeks. True, there was a friend who helped me to do this. But after this story, I realized that Sberbank, Alpha and even the hated VTB are just the height of convenience and engineering.

At the time of appointment, I already received a Monzo card - it is considered a normal bank; then Revolut did not yet have a UK license. I thought: since there is already Monzo, I will not rush to Barclay's - I will open an account in a few months. And he did not travel to the other side of London for a Barclay's card. After a few months I tried to get the Barclay's card again; the appointment date was set in two weeks. Okay. I came two weeks later and ... I forgot my passport (I only had my resident's permit with me). But I still stood in line for 40 minutes - despite the fact that I arrived exactly as intended - in order to hear: "I'm sorry, you can't do without a passport." Then they told me that I could come with my passport the next day and skip the line. I came; the process of filling out the questionnaire lasted 40 minutes, after which I was told:everything is fine, the card will come in 2 weeks. I waited a month - the card did not arrive. I went to the same branch of Barclay's, asked what was happening - I was sent to the next line. I waited 10 minutes; the person told me that everything that was needed seemed to have been filled in, that he saw that the card had not come to me, and that now I had to go and ask another person who would be free in 20 minutes. After 20 minutes I was told that the man would be busy for another half hour. After that I decided that I didn't really need an account with Barclay's.and that now I have to go and ask another person who will be free in 20 minutes. After 20 minutes I was told that the man would be busy for another half hour. After that I decided that I didn't really need an account with Barclay's.and that now I have to go and ask another person who will be free in 20 minutes. After 20 minutes I was told that the man would be busy for another half hour. After that I decided that I didn't really need an account with Barclay's.

This story opened my eyes to the reason why all sorts of startups like Monza, Starling Bank, N26, Revolut, Vivid Money (which went from Russia to Germany) not only have the right to live - life itself has a desire for them to grow and develop ...

I didn’t trust the account in N26 - I didn’t like the card design. I opened American Express for myself; to be honest, this is my most used card. Now they are both a payment system and a bank, and they have the biggest bonuses. I love their co-branding program with British Airways; a friend showed me that with her help you can buy cheap tickets from Moscow to London. I have not tried it yet - the pandemic somehow does not contribute to the waste of points. I also opened an account with HSBC: they performed much better than Barclay's. There were delays, of course, too - they greatly impeded identity verification. But by that time I had already learned the rule: when a big company is dumb, write to Twitter. I wrote: "HSBC, I understand why Revolut has so many clients - you have not been able to verify for a month." The next day a miracle happened: they called me and saidthat you can get a card. I love twitter.

About a banking license. There is an opinion: you cannot keep money in Revolut, because it’s not a bank, and if something happens, it may be lost. I will not consider all aspects, but there is a version of the Russian DIA (Deposit Insurance Agency, which insures all deposits up to 1.4 million rubles). All deposits up to 85 thousand pounds are insured here - this is approximately 8.5 million rubles. In this regard, all deposits in banks are preserved. There is legislation - I can give a link to an article on gov.uk - regarding e-money; it says that any "electronic money institution" is obliged to save your money. By the way, I work in technical and product development right next to this project. In fact, all the money (e-money) that you see in your Revolut account is held in bank accounts. There are special orders, there are risk models;funds from Revolut are distributed among different accounts in large and reliable banks. In case something global happens, everything is protected. This does not negate other factors and personal opinions, but in principle there are no problems with deposit insurance.

Actually, here's the story of why I love Revolut as a product (and similar products) and think it's a cool story.

A little more about Revolut itself and why Revolut. I really like one story connected with him - one value that is not openly spelled out in our list of values. I'm not even sure if senior management considers this to be our value, but for me Revolut is opening the boundaries. This is the first positioning of Revolut, and this is my personal story: I opened a border for myself to another country with the help of this company. When Finopolis was in Sochi in December 2018, and there was a session with the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Skorobogatova, and with Tinkov, and with Verkhoshinsky from Alfa Bank - that is, with big people from different banks - Revolut said that we want to launch in Russia ... And this session was also attended by our CEO / founder Nikolai Storonsky. Outrageous Oleg Tinkov said that Revolut was no longer needed in Russia - his bank launched 30 currencies with good rates.They were really cool, in some places they were better than ours (for example, a pair of pounds / rubles). It was cool, of course. But after that, no matter how much we checked, Revolut always had the best rates. Therefore, the value of our card as a traveler's card, the fact that we offer you to spend money in any currency without hidden fees and with minimal spreads when spending is about Revolut. And this is very cool - this is one of those values that are important to me.And this is very cool - this is one of those values that are important to me.And this is very cool - this is one of those values that are important to me.

The second point is that Revolut fixes the course at the time of authorization. Those who are a little more knowledgeable about card transactions know that when you make a payment, it goes through two stages: the first is authorization (when you apply the card), the second is when the banks communicate with each other, send messages and presentment comes. Some banks - I'm not sure which ones, but I observed this - do it so that when you apply a card in a different currency, you are shown the amount with one write-off rate, and then, in the background, the spending occurs with a different rate. Revolut does not do this: the translation rate is always fixed at the time of authorization. How much you see in the message will be written off.

Opening borders for employees is not only my personal story. Several times, unofficially, I heard such a dream among Revolut employees: we need to open a network of offices throughout Europe so that you can come and work anywhere, from anywhere. These are also simple business trips: so that employees from Moscow and employees from London can safely go on a business trip to another city, if it is justified; it is also the ease of working from home. This is cool, it is very important, and it really touches me. However, there are also side effects; a year and a half ago I was in a team of five - it was a great team. All were in different cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krakow, London, New York. Now I have one person on my team from Toronto - and sometimes it is very uncomfortable; especially if he deployed something on his evening, and on a London morning he sleeps.On the other hand, freedom of movement and openness helped during the epidemic: when it was necessary to go and sit down to work at home, everyone just did it. Now the office is turning into an internal coworking space: you have to work from home - you work from home; you need to go to the office - in a special application you say that you will be in the office, I will sit at a specific table. This is also part of tracking the epidemic. Now, however, in Great Britain there is a new order of the government, and everyone is again recommended to stay at home - but this no longer affects our process in principle.that you will be in the office, I will sit at a specific table. This is also part of tracking the epidemic. Now, however, in Great Britain there is a new order of the government, and everyone is again recommended to stay at home - but this no longer affects our process in principle.that you will be in the office, I will sit at a specific table. This is also part of tracking the epidemic. Now, however, in the UK there is a new order of the government, and everyone is again recommended to stay at home - but this no longer affects our process in principle.

I think it's important to meet the team in person, of course. Although my team is divided into three cities - Moscow, London and Toronto - and most of the work, up to 80-90%, can simply be done remotely, and you don't have to meet in person. But it is very important to establish contacts, to conduct team building.

In parallel with this, it is important to set up the working context. Everybody here is different; my story is that when we first moved, we rented a smaller apartment, and the only table in it was the dining table. I hate to work at the dinner table. Now we have moved to Terest House: it is a little bigger, a little more expensive and farther from the center - but now I am sitting in a room 1.70 * 2.5 meters, and a normal workplace is clearly located here. We moved after the end of the first lockdown; I am very glad that now the house has a special place for working from home.

Q: I know that there are a lot of programmers at Sberbank; which state is in Revolut?

I don't know the exact numbers; I know that there are definitely more than 1000 employees in Revolut, if not more than 2000. Developers - specifically, the main backend - are about 100-200, probably. Great emphasis is placed on development. Another core value of Revolut (which is also important to me) is that everything that can be automated needs to be automated. Human labor should be minimized (although this does not prevent developers from sometimes writing crudes), so a very significant emphasis is placed on developers. But I don't know the exact numbers.

(…) Yes, there are around 200 backend developers, and about 400-500 developers in total.

Back to work from home and quarantine. The question arises: if it is so convenient to work from home, or just from afar, then why bother transporting people to London? I don't know the whole motivation of Revolut; I can repeat that personal contact is important, and nobody gives up this idea. When people do business, they directly follow the product, when you can approach the next table and clarify something - this is important. This was an important part of my motivation to move to London, and it continues. At the same time, Revolut grows up; some processes are still "on the knee", but some - are fixed. The relocation process has become more complicated; now, from a half-word CTO, it may not work. We gradually cease to be a startup and become a big, serious company.

Q: A lot of bad things are written about the Revolut culture.

I will not comment on a bunch of articles that are being written, but I want to highlight two important points. First, basically the same people complain. While I was in school, university, the same people complained about how difficult everything is. It was fine for me both at a school with in-depth study of English, and at the scientific and engineering lyceum, and at the Physicotechnical Institute (of course, this is a cool university, but the difficulty of studying is still a matter of attitude, although I was not a very cool student). The same is with Revolut. The same people complain. Those who come to Revolut and complain about "bad culture" will also complain outside of Revolut.

The second question is about personal boundaries and personal stories. When I was interviewing, I asked a question about work-life balance. And they answered me with a very important phrase: if you do not want to recycle, then no one will force you. In my 2.5 years of work here, this has only been confirmed. People who have matured and know that they have personal boundaries work here. For example, I have a child and a family, and at 17.30 I get up from the table and go to pick up the child from the garden: this is my border, and no one forces me to cross it. Of course, someone is overworking and working 12 hours a day, including weekends; I think it's their own choice - or they have too tight boundaries, and they are easily inclined to rework.

Recycling and work-life balance are not so much about Revolut as about personal boundaries. Revolut is not the most aggressive environment in which I have worked, but quite aggressive; if you sag, you may be overworking.

I wanted to mention the topic of product development. My situation is not unique, although interesting; I am technically an engineer, my position on paper is listed as "backend software engineer". In internal systems, I am listed as a product owner, although I consider myself more of a product developer - not in terms of writing code, but in terms of the fact that I'm developing a product, and I'm not interested in building. I really like the phrase that Sasha Morozov, my boss from the previous place, said: "There are programmers, and there are developers." That is, programmers are those who write code, developers are those who offer solutions. I am grateful to Sasha for a very large number of wisdom, including this one, and I completely agree with this statement. A cool development solution sometimes comes without a single line of code. Google Spreadsheet made it possible to avoid writing a huge amount of code.

This is my position. I myself have experience in Java; someone asks how I came to Java: I initially studied it at school, including at the Olympiads. I had degrees in programming and algorithms, mathematics and physics. I just turned my hobby into work. Programming is interesting to me from the point of view of solving problems: it's a very cool automation, it's a very cool story. Writing code itself, scaling, Kafka, Postgres, sharding - I believe that this is all cool, but I won't go there until I come across a business problem that the same Kafka solves. This approach characterizes me, and not only me; There is a certain trend in the industry to highlight product developers, and it is important. This is not the future; it's just a selection.

Q: I'm trying to program now, but I'm a humanist. It’s hard to go through the books.

I don't believe in humanities and techies. If you want to figure out something - take it and figure it out. And if you are interested in "humanitarian" reading books and learning languages - take and teach. Just do what you strive for.

I myself made this decision because I planned a family, and in Moscow it was easier to make money by programming than in my favorite branch of education.

How I moved to London with Revolut

Q: did the whole family move at once?

Q: was there any attitude towards migrants on the part of the locals, were there any difficulties?

Q: I know that there are a lot of programmers at Sberbank; which state is in Revolut?

Q: A lot of bad things are written about the Revolut culture.

Q: I'm trying to program now, but I'm a humanist. It’s hard to go through the books.

What happened before

More articles: