IT platoon, which serves in the Armed Forces. How Project Manager Roman Perimov assembled a unit of 30 tech specialists

Ukrainian Project Manager Roman Perimov has been in IT for almost 20 years. On the eve of war, he planned to relocate to the United States but deliberately postponed his departure due to the threat of Russian invasion. On February 25, the day after the attack, he volunteered for the Armed Forces, and, embarking on his military career, he headed a unit of 30 IT guys in the infantry assault brigade.

Roman shared his story with DOU and told about what his IT platoon is doing and why the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to him, is the best organization in the world.

IT guys from Roman’s platoon also told about some projects of their unit.

Roman Perimov

A nuclear power engineer who became an IT specialist and traveled to 40 countries

This is my third article on DOU. The first came out before the war in 2012, and was about dreams that have remained dreams. The second was published in 2015 and covered peculiarities of recruitment. This third and so far last publication could be called “I’m in the Army Now”, and I would like it to become a story about a fast IT career in the AFU (without doubt, the best organization in the world at the moment) and army life.

I was born in the former Soviet Union, having Armenian, Russian, German, and Tatar blood; I grew up and graduated in the West of Ukraine. Accidentally, I enrolled at the Faculty of Nuclear Energy in Kyiv, where it was no accident that my destiny and my wife found me. We both finished graduate school, and in the process, we realized that “too good isn’t good, too”. After three years in the energy sector, my first conscious choice was the IT industry, as I was attracted by the culture of the English-speaking business environment.

I happened to catch an upward stream, and in three years, progressed from Intern to Executive Manager. I refused to emigrate several times (the honored DOU did not define the term “tractor” yet at that time), just looking closely at those who agreed to move 15 years before. I decided to live first for myself and my family, and then for money, if needed.

With global thinking and innate agility, we managed to visit 40 countries, live in six of them, almost raised children, and tried all the hobbies that many leave till retirement. All this time, we have always responsibly kept our work in focus and, again, accidentally implemented our own investment plan of switching to passive income. Thus, at the beginning of 2022, I was one step closer to the end of my career — I joined the last project in the United States, which I had to start in late March. I could have left earlier because I received a visa in January. But I deliberately postponed my departure, understanding the situation and hoping that they would not surge. But they did...

By the way, it was the same in 2014. I was supposed to head to Poland to open an office there, but I refused. Then, in 2015-2016, I was offered a permanent job in the United States, but I also postponed my departure. Relocation is good when everything is good in the country. I was ready to join the army if conscripted, but it never happened. Instead, together with colleagues, we organized the Dopomoga 2022 charity fund. We mostly raised money for bulletproof vests, thermal imagers, etc. When the active phase ended, the fund’s activities were focused on medical support and treatment of injuries received during hostilities.

The story about access to state secrets helped to get into the army

When this all outbroke, I was on vacation in Bukovel with my family. The next day I saw tanks on cameras near our house in Irpin and “wrote it off” mentally.

Together with family, we made a tough joint decision to separate. I took my wife and 10-year-old daughter to the border. The queues were not so long at that time, we stood for four hours. We were bidding farewell, as if forever...

At that time, there were already huge relocation chats in companies and communities. I helped my colleagues with coordination as much as I could. At the same time, I opened informal coworking in my friend’s hostel in Rakhiv.

Then, together with my son (he also works in IT) and a friend, we went to the Rakhiv Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support. But only I was coscripted eventually. The friend had a specialty not in demand currently, and the son was not accepted due to “limited eligibility”.

Why did I go to serve consciously and confidently, being ready to set off even without training the same day? I consider myself rather an atheistic person by upbringing and views, but quite tolerant to all religions. I don’t believe in the immortality of the soul. I adore the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, in one of his books there is a quote from “The Lion King”, when a lion was born and his father says: “I’m an old adult lion, now I’m not afraid to die”. And I have noticed that people often react differently to death, depending on whether they have children or not. My son is already an adult, my daughter has almost grown up, the “family” stage has been completed. But there are other commitments.

So, when we came to the military enlistment office, there was no one to enroll. Only 2-3 oldies wishing to join the territorial defense. The duty officer accepted me by my passport. Then there was a counterintelligence check (my birthplace is slightly “problematic”). But everything was ok, probably, because the “Armor” (integrated information retrieval system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine — ed.) still saves my two accesses to state secrets that already expired. They gave me a green light and signed me up as a soldier because I didn’t have a registration certificate with me. The closest departure was after the weekend. I asked to go to Kyiv, not knowing the local specifics at that time. They promised that it would be so.

I left for distribution as a soldier and arrived in the unit as an officer

Monday came at the appointed time. As it turned out, I took more stuff than necessary with me. Rakhiv friends gave me a winter sleeping bag, and a mat, I bought kitchenware, bath accessories, etc. I even took dry rations. I also had a weapon for the TDF, but I didn’t take it, left it to my friends. It was very cold at the end of February, so I went in a ski jacket. I was ready to set off to the trenches, fright guerrilla if necessary.

I was sent not to Kyiv, but a unit in Zakarpattia. The man on duty pitched me (light army cheating) to sign up. And I didn’t even look at what I agreed to.

As the future “guardians of the galaxy”, we were picked up on an ordinary 18-seats Mercedes Sprinter. A total of 25 people, we just sat on the floor on the mats. But still, the trip was emotional, as everyone was a volunteer. While we were driving, my wife sent me an old copy of the registration certificate somewhere from the archives, which I sent to the enlistment office via Viber. So, you could say that I left as soldier and arrived in a few hours as a signal officer.

Roman’s division, consisting of 30 members

We arrived late in the evening and waited all night in the gym for distribution. In the morning, my registration certificate was already at the base, so I officially became a “junior-level” officer. There were still vacant positions, so I was appointed platoon commander by my specialty “radio relay communication” (now it’s internet communication, in fact).

Then there was “speed training without loss of quality”. In peacetime, the training lasts three months. Now — a week or two. During this time we studied the statute a bit, weapons, guard service; we had training in shooting and tactical medicine. After that, we were sent to the places of service. Those without experience, of course, are not at the frontline. Some cases were reported on the Internet, but I didn’t witness such.

Andrii Palatnyi, Front-end Engineer at Playtech, signals platoon soldier at the AFU

Within a week, I “onboarded” a team of 30 IT guys

I was the first IT guy to join this platoon, so they appointed me a commander. That same day, I had a chance to talk to leadership, and we had a “management interview” over the phone. I explained what I was ready for and what I could do. And then, as I understood it, an informal order was given to send all mobilized IT people who joined our brigade to my platoon. The next few days went like this: all the new IT specialists were told: “There is Roman in a ski jacket, go to him, he knows everything”. In a week, I “onboarded” more than 30 people.

No more than 15% of this number came as volunteers, all others were mobilized. Speaking about the geographical distribution, there are several locals from Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, Lviv. But most evacuated with their families and lived here on the outskirts, registered as internally displaced persons, and were conscripted. About a third are from Kyiv, but most are from Kharkiv.

Preparation and verification of Starlink

Up to half of my platoon are developers. There are also testers, devops, designers, project managers, sales, system administrators. One Executive Manager and one Data Scientist. That is a complete scrum kit. Of course, civilian positions do not coincide with real ranks. In such a way, the guy from Kharkiv works as an Executive Manager in an English company, but here he is a regular platoon soldier because he did not graduate from a military department.

However, not only we perform the duties assigned to the signals department but also take on IT work. One of our guys is a soldier, but in our structure, he is a project manager, another “soldier” heads an EIRP project on financial and organizational architectural systems. Overall, our platoon satisfies the IT requests of the entire brigade.

When I came to the unit, there was almost nothing to do with IT — just two old computers and a half-dead printer. The first thing we took on promptly was closing our urgent needs. In military affairs, there are concepts of operational and tactical communication. The second is within the unit, more simply it covers radio stations. Nothing secret here, except for the encryption codes. The walkie-talkies had bad batteries and were outdated. That’s why we launched an infrastructure project to replace the equipment fleet and re-flash it. It was easy, the main issue was to get money, we did it through volunteer IT people.

The next intermediate link is radio repeaters. Roughly speaking, servers. And they were also lacking because they are often damaged during the bombing of control points. We found where to buy them and figured out how to work with them, thus closing this gap.

The next issue was long-distance communication — operational, organized via the Internet. Previously, everything went through a specific system of repeaters of the Armed Forces, which were old, rather low-speed, and not within the general Internet. Of course, Mr. Musk helped us a lot in this situation by providing Starlink. The military has adapted quickly, using them through civilian routers where secret tunnels and protocols can be installed, and that’s all; there is only standard military communication — closed, but using a common TCP/IP protocol. This description occupies three paragraphs in the article, but in reality, those are two months of work. These were basic projects directly within our specialty.

Disguised Starlink plate

There was also an IT infrastructure project for our unit and headquarters. As I said, there were almost no computers, no network. We now have full Wi-Fi coverage, computers, servers, laptops. By the way, many domestic IT companies have donated us used equipment. We closed most of the needs in a month.

All our projects started with an idea. There were no orders. Within the army structure, we have to deal only with walkie-talkies and communications. Everything else is my own initiative. Sometimes we offer something, but it’s banned. And sometimes, on the contrary, we are asked about something, and we add something from our side, do more, and invest in different ways.

Of course, some guys are involved in individual initiatives such as contributing to a program, writing a script, macro, etc. We help the general duties department (an analog of the HR department in the Armed Forces) with this. That is, in general, many standard IT activities result in some issues being closed, while others are added. We have everything as in the usual production in terms of the project, with only the type of activity being not IT, but military affairs.

Due to the way we organized everything in the unit, in mid-April I received an extraordinary rank before the line, which usually requires at least a year of service. It was epic and completely unexpected. I always tried to avoid promotions, especially given such “title inflation”, when one gets the title of “director of directors” at the age of 27 or 28 because it seems pointless and cheap. And here I didn’t succeed.

Kostiantyn Ilchenko, Senior Automotive Presales Manager at Luxoft, signals platoon soldier at the AFU

Most of the team works at the frontline

At this point, we support current projects. By the way, our team was together for only two weeks, then we separated. Of my 35-people “scrum chat”, eight, including me, remain at the base, the rest are at the frontline. At headquarters, we deal with everything related to infrastructure, as well as logistics, supplies, etc.

The signals officers are on the “second line” and maintain rear command post, reserve command post, etc., that is, everything that Arestovich says: “Our guys destroyed the orcs’ command post”. We have it all here as well but very well hidden. Guys maintain walkie-talkies, Starlink. If they lack something, including items broken during the fighting, we send it away by military echelons or by Nova Poshta. Parcels contain sneakers, of course :) There has been no rotation. By standards, it happens once every 90 days. Of course, someone can be taken away earlier due to injury or illness. But, fortunately, so far everything is fine and it didn’t happen this way.

We had approximately the following dialogue with the Starlink service:

— Good evening, we are from Ukraine.

— How can I help you?

— Our router burned down, can you replace it?

— Of course, and the power supply?

— Also burned.

— And the antenna?

— Yes, and the antenna burned down...

— How come? It’s metal. * I’m sending a photo of the car *

— Send it to us and we’ll replace it!

I asked to be sent to the frontline three times, but each time I was denied because they “need me here”. It’s a pity, because serving in a trench with a gun seems very “high-rated” and more righteous, though not as comfortable. Nobody will blame you. But in the trench, you indeed cannot do much useful, while here in the unit, you get more freedom.

Currently, the most interesting and expensive project we are leading is the purchase and deployment of a system to counter reconnaissance and tactical drones. Air defense deals with large drones or aircraft. And there are small reconnaissance drones that are smaller than the tactical “Orlans”. We can detect them with our system, but not bring them down. Another option is to try blacking them out. So we started looking for a drone identification and jamming system. It is difficult and expensive. There is equipment made in Ukraine. Seemingly, it should reach us under the purchase program through the AFU, but it’s not getting through. The equipment we chose is made in Poland and costs 250 thousand dollars (now we have 700 thousand hryvnias).

We raise funds on behalf of the fund, which we organized at the beginning of our service. My good friends are its founders, my wife is the deputy director, and most of the team are guys from our platoon. This NGO helped us with logistics and supplied equipment: starlings, walkie-talkies, laptops, routers, etc. Now we also want the fund to buy this system, hand it over to our brigade, and it will be listed as authorized armament.

Dmytro Savchenko, Associate Director at SoftServe, signals platoon soldier at the AFU

Hopes vs realities: women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and continued work for IT companies

To put it briefly, everything related to military service turned out much better than I expected. Literally everything. For instance, such an interesting point as the “diversity quota” that exists in the US-owned companies is one of the crucial components of the corporate policy in modern organizations. The military brigade as a structure largely corresponds to this format. Yes, my platoon consists of guys only. But in total there are 15 full-time female contractors who served here before we came. We live in one barracks, there is a large shared toilet for all, a washroom for 20 people. Everything is organized in the same way in the Israeli army, where women and men serve equally.

The second point is the relationship between the fighters, the officers, and the command. There is no stupid formality, no marching stuff or annoyance. Requirements for appearance and outfit stay within reasonable limits. Of course, shorts and flip-flops are not allowed. But, for example, I do not shave, I have a ponytail, which I was not forced to cut. I’m not wearing the AFU T-shirt right now during the interview. The only thing they complain about is a cap, for some reason you can’t wear non-statutory caps. As for shoes, it’s moderate, but they should be at least a bit like a military ones.

Voluntary physical training classes of the unit

And I’ll also mention ageism: brave and vigorous 23-year-old seniors, where are you? I saw almost no one. Here we actually have mostly 40-year-old, rather angry, often gray-haired men in line. Not everyone is a volunteer, but everyone is aware of why they are here: it is about communication and assault infantry. I accidentally had a guy in the platoon three years younger than my son, a freshman. Nobody sends him anywhere — he learns UI/UX useful for the army.

The food is quite good, there is a large centralized kitchen, and volunteers serve meals as well. Now, since there are few of us left here, we have been put on a separate supply. They don’t bring us food in an organized manner, but we are paid well so that we can feed ourselves. We just leave the unit, go to a cafe for lunch or buy food in stores. Everything is almost the same as in civilian life. The barracks contains a boiler, a washing machine, which were here before us, we added a coffee machine, and a microwave. You can order pizza and use electric bikes. Physical education is completely voluntary, there are all the conditions for crossfit, there is also an old but decent tennis table in the barracks.

Specifically, our group is not prohibited (they even support it, if there is time and opportunity) to continue working for one’s company. There are guys in my platoon who stopped working because of project closures or other reasons. But more than half continue to work with one or more companies while serving full time. Someone’s work takes a lot of energy, then we watch their backs a bit on local tasks or on duty. If customers are in PST, it’s even easier.

Moreover, the Armed Forces pay well. On the front line, salaries start from 120 thousand hryvnias per month, which, as we know, corresponds to a certain level according to the DOU questionnaire. On the second line, where you can have shifts or not too many duties, it is quite possible to combine service with individual entrepreneurship. About 50 thousand hryvnias a month are paid in the rear and security facilities, which is a salary plus a martial law allowance. Therefore, for a soldier-IT-senior, the total income of 10 thousand dollars a month is quite real.

Platoon members at work

I’ve already written about the conditions in the barracks, I’ll only add about the weak heating. I remember it was pretty cold in early March, everyone was sleeping in their sleeping bags, under a blanket. But no one complained, it was still much more comfortable than hiking in the Carpathians or in the field. So, despite some difficulties and inconveniences, we have a good atmosphere. During my career, I have gone through the creation of a large number of teams and I want to say that the team that we have gathered here is the brightest and most ideological. Despite that there are four or five volunteers, including me, the rest were not conscripted by force, but “involuntary”. They are passionate and ready to work.

I also continue to work in the evenings, not on one full-time job, but for several consulting projects with a constant workload, it’s possible to catch up. Moreover, I have two startups: a small construction company and a motorcycle workshop, they are working again. Seems that I have enough time for everything. What has changed the most in terms of IT, comparing office and the military? More fresh air, walk, and yes, I’m switching from macOS to Windows again, got a super Toughbook. To all who know me personally I’m sending a big hello from the Armed Forces, see you.

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