IT companies are discussing the creation of a unified employee certification system

This week, Russian IT companies will sign a memorandum on the development and promotion of unified methods for certifying specialists working with domestic software – primarily to increase demand for the services of training centers. The government is already discussing the initiative to introduce a national certification system for IT specialists, but the market has not yet developed a unified approach to it.

Russian IT companies, associations, the Skolkovo Foundation and Innopolis are discussing the creation of a unified certification system for IT specialists in the country, sources told Kommersant. According to one of them, on September 14 at Skolkovo, following a round table, a memorandum of cooperation between the companies will be signed regarding common methods and approaches to certification of IT specialists working with domestic software.

Before the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Russian IT specialists could be certified to work with foreign products, for example, Oracle, Red Hat, VMware, etc. Applicants were trained and passed an exam. The certificate made it possible to work with software on the customer’s infrastructure and provided advantages in employment. Passing certification cost 20–100 thousand rubles. depending on the course. Foreign companies also certified employees in terms of technology knowledge. For example, Oracle certified Java.

A Kommersant source on the market explains that Russian developers also carry out certification of specialists, which confirms their skills in working with certain operating systems, DBMSs, etc.: “But this certification must be recognized not only by the developers themselves, but also by customers and system integrators , by the state. It is necessary that the certificates have an official status.” Kommersant’s interlocutors in the market confirm that currently the presence of certificates is not a mandatory criterion for admission to work with the relevant software.

The Skolkovo Foundation explained to Kommersant that they proposed developing unified approaches to import substitution of IT certifications and “forming a system that works and is recognized by all players.”

Innopolis declined to comment. The Ministry of Digital Development and market participants have been discussing the idea of ​​​​approving a national certification system for IT specialists at least since the summer – TASS reported this at the end of June with reference to Minister Maksut Shadayev. The ministry clarified to Kommersant that the certification mechanism has not yet been determined: “We are analyzing proposals for possible models.”

According to one of Kommersant’s sources, training centers and representatives of large integrators have been discussing approaches to certification of specialists since the beginning of 2023: “There were, for example, proposals to introduce mandatory certification requirements for civil servants for knowledge of Russian office packages and operating systems.” According to him, a “more controversial initiative” also arose: to tie the salaries of technical specialists in departments to the number of certificates received.

Kommersant’s interlocutor believes that “such ideas often come not from software customers, but from training centers and integrators, and have not yet found universal support.”

The introduction of mandatory requirements for certification of employees of departments and state companies to work with Russian software is useful for training centers, but can be harmful for developers, confirms the head of the board of directors of Basalt SPO, Alexey Smirnov: “The question is who to certify. If it’s a technical specialist, then the procedure will be formal – even without certification they understand how to work with products.”

The general director of the company “Web Server” (developed the Russian web server Angie) Zaur Abasmirzoev also considers the introduction of requirements under which certification to work with one or another Russian software will become a mandatory condition for a specialist’s admission to work, illogical: “Currently there are several dozens of operating systems and dozens of solutions in the “database management” category, and it cannot be said that one or another product prevails on customers’ infrastructure.” As a result, Mr. Abasmirzoev explains, when changing employers, the engineer will have to undergo certification again.

Nikita Korolev, Timofey Kornev