Niyaz Nigmatullin is a PhD student at ITMO, a tutor at the university’s Information Technologies and Programming Faculty, and a lecturer at the course “Algorithms and Data Structures”. He is a two-time champion of the International Collegiate Programming Contest and the winner of the 2015 VK Cup tournament. The programmer has also recently been named among Tatarstan’s Top 50 People in IT in a ranking developed by the news outlet Business Online on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of Tatarstan’s IT-capital Innopolis.
Right now, Niyaz is busy teaching at the university, hosting training camps for school students, and training candidates to Russia’s national team at the International Olympiad in Informatics. He also serves as a judge at the quarterfinals of the Northern subregion of the North-East region of the ICPC.
How does your typical morning start?
If I’m at home, I wake up at 8.30 or 9am and then turn my computer on and check my work emails. It’s not always a breeze to wake up early, but I try to because it allows me to do more with my day, as I have more energy in the morning and just generally am more productive. Come 11am, I’m already at work.
How do you go about planning your day?
It goes without saying that I always try to find some time here and there to do some programming. But my current work is in part connected with communicating with other people. There is this human factor, and I have to work my time around other people’s schedules and understand that some unexpected circumstances may occur. And this is something I’m still coming to terms with.
How do you talk with your students?
I’ve been teaching at the university since 2015 and came to the conclusion that there has to be a balance in how I as a lecturer communicate with the students: I think it’s best for us all to stay on the same page. In the first place, I try to understand my students. Culture, slang, worldviews: it all changes, and common ground has to be found. It’s important for me to get feedback from my students, to understand what they think and what they want.
In your opinion, have you managed to become a hero for someone out there?
To some degree, yes; because I share my knowledge, some influence on the student audience is inevitable. Teachers are always looked up to, and I hope that I helped school students I work with better themselves and their lives in some way or another.
What are your role models?
In my first year at the university, I got into programming competitions and had this burning ambition to become a programming ace. Back then, it was Slava Isenbaev who was at the helm of the competition tables. Obviously, I wanted to code as well as he did, so in some sense, he was my programming role model.
I graduated from a typical school and not some super-specialized lyceum, and so I did feel lacking in mathematical skills when studying at uni. Of course, I looked up to the best in my year and trained accordingly. I tried to match up to them because I thought, if they were doing so well, they clearly knew something about maths. But there’s no ideal person I could take inspiration from.
You do a lot of working, teaching, and developing in your line of trade. Is there any time left for taking a vacation? If yes, how do you plan it?
It’s hard for me to plan my vacation because I have zero time to go one. For example, my last summer looked like this: June was a stream of exams, then I went down south to the education center “Sirius”, then to Innopolis to teach school kids. After that, I hopped on the plane to Estonia to participate in a summer school in computer science, came back, did some work for our summer admissions, and then left for Petrozavodsk to a training camp. And that was that for the summer. Vacation is the time when you do what you want, but sadly, it’s not always possible. This past winter, I decided to spend some time with my family and went home to Kazan. I really hope that I will do better in terms of finding more time for rest in the future. Work is good and everything, but you have to rest well to work well.
Apart from sports programming, what other sports do you practice?
I haven’t reached that level of signing up for a gym yet. But this notwithstanding, I’m a big fan of sports activities; I was seriously into football at one point. I do play it now when I have the time and really enjoy ice-skating in winter.
There is a stereotype that programmers aren’t the most outgoing people out there. Maybe it’s because of the fact that they’re all so busy. Do you manage to scrape some time to meet up with your friends? Are they programmers as well?
Just recently, I’ve managed to catch up with a classmate from Kazan; we hadn’t seen each other for ten years. But on the whole, I’m seeing my friends very often. Some of them I know from the university, some of them I work with when teaching school kids, so we’re always in touch.
Is there anyone in your friendship group you consider life-changing?
I can’t name one person in particular. Some changed my outlook on programming, others influenced my teaching approach. By the way, some of my first students went on to become my friends, they’re now teaching too. They’ve also changed my life in some way. And, without a doubt, anyone who has ever said that I made a mistake in something also left an impact on my life in some way or another.
It must have been nerve-racking to participate in your first competitions. How did you manage that?
Fear is something rational. Most of the time, you’re afraid of some consequences in the future. But if you don’t know of these consequences, you’re less likely to be afraid. We’re not afraid of heights, it’s falling from this height that’s the culprit. Now and again, that fear of potential gets to us, and that’s what makes us feel nervous.
I was never nervous when I participated in competitions. Well, except for that one time at the end of my first ICPC finals. I was afraid of not making it in time and doing something wrong, and it made me really bad at concentrating. I think this was caused by all the responsibility I felt. In the end, we did win it anyway.
Any advice on concentrating, then?
This was something that came with practice. I wasn’t used to going places at school, so when I went to my first competition in Kirov, I was feeling very uncomfortable. But as I sat down and took my the task sheet in my hands, that feeling went away, because I concentrated on the tasks. And from that moment on, I always manage to concentrate somehow. I think that all the years of training I’ve been through help me with that.
You do a lot of traveling: all these conferences and competitions abroad. Do you have a favorite country or place you’d like to return?
So far, I’ve been to China, Mexico, Morocco, Thailand, a couple of European countries and the US. I really liked Switzerland, namely Zurich, and, of course, the US. I associated the States with my favorite TV series and movies, as this was how I learned the English language, and had always been curious whether things really are the way they’re being portrayed by all these directors. But my first visit proved otherwise. Movies show that this is a clean country, one that has everything and is very pleasant to live in, but walking up and down San Francisco you can’t help but notice a lot of homeless people. Plus I’ve seen how they deal with documents in the US and can say that there’s even more red tape than in Russia. But I would still like to go back there to see New York with my own eyes.
Is there something you know you will never do?
It’s a difficult question to answer because I don’t want to appear categorical. If I’m not ready to do something now, it doesn’t mean that I won’t do this in the future. For example, Anatoly Shalyto (an eminent scientist and professor at ITMO University’s Information Technologies and Programming Faculty – Ed. note) is certain that I’ll never leave Russia to settle somewhere abroad, but I can’t promise him that. Life changes; I just can’t decide on a country yet. After returning from the States, I said, “Guys, living in Russia isn’t that bad after all.” But the US is a big and multinational country, I have to visit different states and see as much as I possibly can to make an opinion.
The interview was originally conducted in Russian by Yulia Lutfullina for the NewTone magazine. The photographs are by Shamil Troyanovsky.
