Evgeny Shebanin – IT Professional

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It has never been that hard to summarize a freelancer portfolio than in the case of our “freelancer of the week” Evgeny Shebanin. Born in Russia but living in Finland, the IT-professional combines several freelancer roles in only one person: Database architect, Business Analyst and Software Developer. In our interview the multi-talent talks about the challenges of being self-employed and encourages other freelancer to extend their portfolios for better chances in the IT-job marked. We warmly welcome Evgeny Shebanin!

1) First off, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am native Russian who has resided at Finland already 10 years. I’m an IT professional with 16 years of versatile experience in project work, so far I have been employed in business analyst, DB architect and SW development roles. My primary technology is ORACLE, added with working knowledge of MySQL and PostgreSQL. Since summer 2014 I had my full-time project assignment which is expiring soon in autumn 2014 and therefor I turned into freelancing activities.
 
2) If you would search for your profile on Google, which are the three keywords you would type in the search bar?
Skills : process and system definition, system design, system  implementation.
Technologies : Oracle, scripting languages (Perl, Javascript), Qlikview. 
Characteristics : ability to capture experience and re-use it, pro-activity, high communication and coaching capacity.
 
3) What was your inspiration and when did you actually decide to become a freelancer?
My project experience covers business analyst, architect and SW developer roles – I have been challenged in finding a proper balance and an option to blend all my experience in one project assignment. It is kind of role which does not normally appear in large system implementations. 
The second challenge was to balance my work assignments i.e. to try taking tasks of various scopes and deadlines – aiming to secure job stability in current economy challenges. Since then I started promotion and profiling myself on multiple freelancing sites, took an exciting opportunity to be Database architect for SaaS solution for construction industry. My freelancing has been a part-time activity supporting full-time project work at CGI Finland
 
4) What kind of services have your clients asked you to provide?
Business analyst work, ORACLE technology consultancy and back-end architecture tasks.
 
5) Do you use other freelancers or companies to provide skills that you don’t possess?
From to time I recognize a need and start hiring campaign to sign a freelancer with complimentary DBA expertise. The occasions are not more than one time per year. Normally I am successful to allocate appropriate skills among my partner network. 
 
6) Now tell us, how do you find new clients that are interested in your services?
I do actively use a selection of freelancing sites where freelancermap.com goes first for long-time assignments with high demand for business domain and technology knowledge and second goes Odesk.com where I could pick up single-time tasks with short implementation cycle. Occasionally I set e-mail campaigns to my partners if they are in demand of business analyst or SW architect.
 
7) What about freelancermap.com? Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with our IT-network?
I have been impressed with variety of IT expertise and high demand of qualified IT professionals which freelancermap.com has been supporting. There are two actual suggestions where the first one will be to encourage recruiters to provide more details at job postings and the second one will be to work out common format for job enquiry (the current state is that different recruiters ask slightly different details). And even at my very short stint with freelancermap.com I have been already approached with a number of respectable IT recruiting agencies promoting challenging positions in BI projects.
 
8) How do you set yourself apart from your competitors? What makes you special?
It is my aspiration to put forward a complex proposal for IT project needs – I can easily blend roles of system analyst with relevant industry insight, back-end architect and SW developer. This makes my offering valuable across all project life-cycle and reinforces collaboration competence level and collaboration efficiency inside project team. When promoting my profile against competitors I put broad industry insight and wide-scoped competence capacity as my value proposition.
 
9) What are the top three books, blogs or magazines you read to stay up to date in the IT-market?
As my educational background is mathematics I enjoy reading what mathematicians think about ways of our day-to-day life, developing socialization and the way we communicate with each other. This helps in balancing systematic approach, communication technics and fun in everyday work occasions.
 
10) Freestyle! Is there anything you would like to tell our readers?
Try to present multiple technology profiles and multiple services you are aiming to provide. This will increase your chances and will assure employers and headhunters that you would be definitely valuable technology asset.
 
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You can find my freelancer profile here:
The interview was conducted by Doreen Schollmeier – freelancermap.com team. 
 
Pic: © Evgeny Shebanin
 
You would also like to be introduced as a freelancer in our “freelancer insides”? 
Send us an email to info@freelancermap.com with the subject “freelancer insides” and shortly describe your services, experiences, and status!
Doreen Schollmeier

Doreen Schollmeier is dealing with the international freelancing and outsourcing market for more than 5 years and knows both sides of the coin. After working as a project manager for an India based company until 2012, supporting the company to find clients worldwide, she nowadays helps freelancers to find jobs and clients.

By Doreen Schollmeier

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