Growing through support: Kudratbek Nishonov on people, problem-solving, and opportunity

Hi, this is Kudrat, and I’m a Manager of Customer Support at SmartRecruiters. I lead a product support team focused on helping customers get value from the platform, resolving product and technical questions, and making sure we provide clear, timely, and thoughtful support.

A big part of my role is enabling the team behind that experience. That means coaching on quality and customer outcomes, supporting difficult cases, improving our processes and tools, and working closely with Engineering, Customer Success, Product, and other Support teams.

I see the role as balancing two responsibilities: taking care of the customer in front of us and continuously improving the system that helps the team serve customers well.

What do you enjoy most about being a manager at SmartRecruiters?

What I enjoy most is seeing people grow in confidence and capability. It’s very rewarding when someone who initially needs a lot of support begins to make good judgments independently, helps others, and starts thinking about their next career step. I also enjoy the combination of people leadership and problem-solving.

Support gives you a close view of customer friction, so you can turn recurring problems into better documentation, clearer workflows, improved tooling, and stronger collaboration between teams. To be honest, the most satisfying moments are when that work helps both sides: the customer gets a better experience, and the team has a clearer and more sustainable way to work.

Looking back, what helped you grow from an individual contributor into a manager?

For me, the transition happened gradually. First, building strong product and customer support fundamentals gave me credibility. But the bigger shift was learning to think beyond my own area—in other words, to see the bigger picture.

I started taking on escalations, customer calls, process improvement, and coaching opportunities. Those experiences taught me that leadership isn’t only about having the right answer; it’s more about creating clarity, helping others succeed, and taking ownership when a situation is ambiguous.

Feedback and trust from leaders and cross-functional partners also played a major role. I learned to communicate openly, ask better questions, and understand the wider business impact. Over time, I became more comfortable delegating tasks, giving direct feedback, and measuring my success through the team’s outcomes rather than only through my individual output.

Learning seems to be an important part of how you work and lead. How do you approach your own upskilling today?

I try to make learning practical and connected to real work. I usually start with a customer problem. It might be a product area I want to understand better or a pattern I’ve seen in the team.

Then I combine formal training with hands-on investigation. For example, reading the available documentation, testing the behavior, asking subject-matter experts, and documenting what I learn. I also deliberately take on topics that stretch me. In Support, that can mean going deeper into areas such as calendar integration, APIs, SSO, or new SAP-related workflows.

I don’t consider learning complete when I’ve just finished a course. I want to be able to explain the topic clearly, apply it to a customer situation, and share the useful parts with the team.

As a manager, how do you encourage continuous learning within your team without making it feel like just another task?

I try to connect learning to work the team already cares about. When we see a recurring question, a difficult engineering ticket, or a case where the expected behavior isn’t obvious, we can turn it into a knowledge-sharing opportunity. That makes the learning immediately useful rather than theoretical.

I also give the team ownership. Anyone can suggest a topic, and we keep the discussion grounded in real cases, relevant resources, and clear follow-up actions.

People learn in different ways, so I use a mix of case help, learning sessions, documentation, coaching, and short-term discussions. The goal isn’t to create more boxes to tick; it’s to make the next case easier for the person handling it, or for anyone who encounters the same issue later.

What kinds of skills do you think are becoming especially important for people in support roles right now?

AI is a very hot topic these days, but the fundamentals still matter enormously: empathy, clear communication, sound judgment, ownership, and, most importantly, the ability to stay calm when a customer is under pressure.

Support roles are also becoming more technical and more connected to the wider product ecosystem. I think the most important combination is strong troubleshooting and systems thinking. Support professionals need to understand not only what a feature does, but also how integrations, permissions, data flows, APIs, and downstream processes affect the customer experience. Curiosity and the ability to test assumptions are essential.

And, yes, let’s talk about AI. I truly believe data and AI literacy are required. People don’t need to become engineers, obviously, but they should be comfortable using automation and AI responsibly, interpreting patterns and support data, and recognizing when human judgment is still required.

Finally, cross-functional collaboration is critical. The best support outcomes usually come from connecting the right context across Support, Engineering, Product, and Customer Success.

How has becoming part of SAP influenced the way you think about growth and opportunity, while still preserving what makes SmartRecruiters special day to day?

Becoming part of SAP has made the opportunity landscape feel much larger. It gives Smartians access to a broader ecosystem, new learning opportunities, mentoring and coaching, job shadowing, and potential career paths across a much bigger organization.

It has also encouraged us to think about how our product, our customers, and our own roles fit into a wider HR and technology landscape.

At the same time, I don’t see that as replacing what makes SmartRecruiters special. Our day-to-day strengths are still customer focus, an ownership mindset, openness, and a willingness to solve problems together. My perspective is that SAP can expand our possibilities while SmartRecruiters preserves the agility and closeness that help us move quickly and stay connected to customers.

The opportunity, I believe, is to benefit from the scale without losing the character that made the company successful.

You also supported our Employee Experience activities by contributing to the demo video. What made you want to get involved?

It’s always a pleasure. I wanted to get involved because learning is most useful when people can see how it works in practice. I had tested the Pluralsight (e-learning platform) and could share an honest perspective on the content, the features, and how a Smartian might use it.

That felt more helpful than simply pointing people to another platform or link. I also enjoy turning something I’ve learned into something useful for other people. Supporting the demo was a small but practical way to contribute to the wider employee experience: making a learning resource more accessible and showing that professional development can be part of our normal work rather than something separate from it.