"For half a year we worked as partisans in the steppes." The story of a veteran who chose civilian life and entered IT despite a significant number of military offers

Enter the war

Since 2014, Viktor has been actively involved in volunteering and often travels to the eastern regions of the country. With the outbreak of full-scale war in 2022, he took his wife and two young daughters (5 years and two months) from the vicinity of Kyiv, where they lived together, to Poland. He himself returned and, at first, patrolled with the local voluntary formation of the territorial community (DFTG) near his settlement.

When the situation around Kyiv became calmer in early April 2022, I went with my brother and friend to the Kherson region, where they are from.

There, the brothers helped people leave, delivered humanitarian aid to the military, and began conducting reconnaissance and artillery adjustments with drones for the Ukrainian defenders who were in that direction.

Unmanned experience

Working practically as volunteer scouts, from April to August 2022, due to their good work, the guys received invitations from three different units to officially join the army.

So Viktor and his brother ended up in the (it wasn’t Kherson, the company was from the city of Dnipro) TRO, and developed there as a group of pilots. Together they participated in the liberation of the Kherson region, later there was Bakhmut, then the Zaporizhzhia direction. In all directions, the unit showed excellent results, for which they were repeatedly awarded and had the opportunity to receive officer ranks.

During military operations, they were among the first to begin mastering the new wing-type UAV «Chaklun», a long-range reconnaissance aircraft, and now a bomber based on it, which is manufactured in Dnipro. Later, in mid-2023, the brother and his comrade transferred to another unit, while Viktor remained in his own.

Return to civilian life

After two years of service, Viktor was forced to demobilize due to family circumstances, because, as he explains, he had to save his family. «I agreed with the commander in advance that I would not leave until I found and studied a worthy replacement, because the unit really gave high results and was constantly involved,» he recalls.

So, in his place, he had to recruit a promising pilot from another brigade and train him to become a platoon commander. At the same time, Viktor also trained a group of UAV operators and codebreakers from scratch to work in the unit.

«Thus, I managed to get released almost painlessly!» he adds, noting that in conversations with his former commander he constantly receives direct and indirect hints that the unit is waiting for him.

While in service, he had the opportunity to advise many young pilots who were training at the UAV manufacturers' school. Thanks to constant feedback from Viktor’s group, the engineers significantly improved the drones and brought them to working parameters.

That is why Victor still receives periodic letters and advice, and recently, after being discharged from the army, he received an offer from them to join a team of inventors on «the most comfortable terms.»

He explained that if he had the chance, he had at least two places where they were eagerly waiting for him!

«But, I also have certain responsibilities to my family and health problems that I now have to overcome,» Victor explains his refusal.

Regarding IT

For the man, technology has never been something far away. From the age of 18, Viktor worked as a system administrator in computer clubs in Kyiv and various companies. And even before the full-scale invasion in 2019, Viktor took a Fullstack development course, because he always got along well with various technologies and was enthusiastic about programming. This is how the former military man explains that the choice of what to do after his release was obvious to him.

Almost immediately after his release, a friend sent Viktor a link to an application for a course for veterans at the IT company EPAM. He is currently finishing his studies, and he is preparing for an interview to get into the EPAM Lab, a part of the educational process at EPAM University, where cadets work on real or simulated projects.

But he’s not sitting idly by. In parallel with his studies, Viktor is working on a pet project with a team of young developers — together they are developing an online store. In addition, his friends have «thrown» him a paid project, where Viktor does the entire frontend.

Between the military and the civilian

When asked why he decided to return to civilian life despite the large number of offers for him in the military sphere, Victor explains that his motivation has always been and is his family, for which he is responsible. «Therefore, the choice was obvious,» the developer adds, although he notes that there are difficulties.

In addition, he continues to help his units and closest friends as much as possible. In particular, during his release alone, he organized three cars, and now he has opened a collection for the next one specifically for his «native» unit, which has expanded and needs transportation, which is always in short supply.

«Therefore, you could say, I continue to do everything possible where I am,» the developer emphasizes.

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