In May 2015 I was lucky, HR at AVG confused my resume with someone smart and they took me to work.
If you accidentally have or had such an antivirus - I'm not to blame.
It all started quite prosaically. Using the best in the world tutorial for finding work in Czech Republic, I went for the first time in my life to try LinkedIn. I wrote, hoping for nothing, to AVG - they just needed an intern in the online marketing department.
The irony is that literally a week before this I found an identical part-time job in a small agency. They offered me 100 crowns per hour, I agreed, because for me this was a lot. The conditions, of course, were so-so: I especially didn't like that I even had to bring my own laptop. The second unpleasantness was that we agreed that the first month I'd work without a contract (they'd pay in hand), and there - we'll see.
And so, one fine day bam, a response comes from AVG - come, they say, let's talk. For me of 2015 vintage this was, of course, a shock - where am I, and where are they.
The interview went well, they treated me friendly, got interested. Soon they invited me to the second round, for an interview with the direct manager. Then also to the third - with the head of the Prague team (by the way, both were from America). Then they also decided to give a test task (everything within normal, managed in an hour).
Actually already in the second round it became clear that they want to take me. Well, since it's clear, I decided for myself - whoever gives a contract first, that's where I'll go.
AVG figured it out almost immediately, so I had to perfidiously leave the small Czech firm (for the first time in the world the absence of a contract became worse for the employer, not for me). But, actually, everything turned out even very simply. By the way, they offered more money, of course, than at the previous place - victorious 120 crowns per hour.
I'll tell very briefly about what awaited me.
The recruitment process and technical details were honed perfectly. I only had to come: on the desk stood a configured laptop, they introduced me to colleagues, if I needed something, I immediately got it. In general you just work, everything else will be there.
I worked 20 hours a week. Already from the first days I learned a thing unknown to me before - "meetings". This is such a feature when many people gather and discuss something there. Unproductive, but well dilutes the boring working day.
Work organization was also good - things like JIRA were used. I learned about tickets, friction between teams and in general got invaluable experience working in a large company. All correspondence was conducted in English, Czechs, as it turned out, generally know it quite well.
A month after starting we went to "team building": first we ran around the city and completed tasks. Then ate and drank. Cool.
Here's a photo for you - the task was to take a photo in the air so that Prague Castle would be visible.
As for people - quite a professional atmosphere around. They talk both in Czech and in English. There were both experienced and young colleagues, but no special friendship developed with anyone for me. Can't say there was a lot of work, you could feel that nobody strains beyond their capabilities.
In general, over time I gained experience, closer to New Year they extended my contract. Everything was going well, the only minus was that I wanted something new, and moving up in a large company is quite a difficult task. At the very beginning I mainly dealt with SEO. After half a year I already understood the technical part well, so they entrusted me with complex changes on the site too.
Working with a site with such huge traffic is, of course, interesting. Already at AVG I dealt a lot with analytical software, even wanted to continue with web analytics further. But still exactly after a year of work I decided to leave in search of a new place - and only after 4 months found one.
A year of such experience was terribly useful to me, primarily in that I visited the light side of the force. Now I work in a small firm that provides support to a big one :) AVG is well-known, so recruiters more willingly respond to resumes. And in general, I already see that the experience of understanding how modern IT business is arranged in general is priceless.
And this is what our team at AVG looked like. People from all over the world, by the way :) It was fun!