How to Hire a Tech Team in Ukraine and Why You Should Do It Despite the War

On the early morning of 24 February 2022, Ukrainian history turned a new, very painful page. In just a few hours, a prosperous country turned into a warring one, changing people’s lives and forcing businesses to readapt to critical conditions. The Ukrainian IT industry has shown particular resilience, actually holding onto the whole economy and maintaining the investment attractiveness of the country for tech projects. 

Let’s find out why your remote team should be in Ukraine and how to hire top-skilled programming talent in this country despite the war. 

The war doesn’t stop Ukrainians – main reasons to hire tech talent in Ukraine

The full-scale war taking place in Ukraine right now is perhaps the biggest challenge the country ever faced. However, it is not the first challenge for the Ukrainian IT industry that successfully survived the pandemic and showed stable growth. In 2020, IT exports grew by 20.4% despite global job losses and the healthcare crisis. 

In Lviv alone, 78 new companies emerged and 1500 new employees were hired during the lockdown. The industry successfully adjusted to working remotely, building and managing distributed teams. In 2022, this experience made it easier for tech businesses to adjust to the war conditions. 

The Ukrainian IT industry is holding its head high and isn’t going to give up. Below are the facts to prove it. 

The IT sector successfully holds on, supporting the country’s economy and army 

After the full-scaled Russian invasion, the Ukrainian IT industry turned out to be the most resilient sector of the economy. In March 2022, Ukrainian IT exports dropped by only 4,4%, while 80% of Ukrainian tech companies maintained their operations. The matter is that the country already lived in a war-like state since 2014, and that’s why the majority of companies run their business processes with these conditions in mind. 

At the same time, during the first quarter of 2022, the Ukrainian IT industry generated an unprecedented $2 billion in revenue. For comparison, the same figure accounted for $1.44 billion in the first quarter of 2021. In fact, the volume of IT exports increased by 28% despite martial law, mobilization, and forced relocation of businesses and teams. 

It would also be fair to say that Ukrainian IT companies and tech workers were the first to support the country with donations. During the first week of the war, IT companies across the country donated over $185 million, and this sum doesn’t include personal donations and financial help from companies from abroad. 

Just for instance, gaming companies worldwide donated over $200,000 million, with Microsoft and Epic Games making the biggest contributions. 

Ukrainian developers are still in high demand

Ukraine has always stood out with its great technical talent pool.  In 2021, the number of Ukrainian IT specialists was 212,000, according to AIN.UA. In 2022, this number increased to 285,000 with 30% of them working in Kyiv. 

So, the Ukrainian tech talent pool grows, while foreign companies are still eager to hire developers in Ukraine. According to the recent survey by DOU (a Ukrainian platform to connect Ukrainian tech companies with the greatest programming minds, knowledge sharing and experience exchange), only 4% of surveyed Ukrainian developers lost their jobs because of the war. 2% of them already landed a new job opportunity, plus a lot of Ukrainian tech workers voluntarily joined the Ukrainian army. 

As of June 2022, only 2% of Ukrainian developers were looking for a new job, so if you have long planned to hire a development team in Ukraine, now is the right time to do it, until the best tech minds aren’t hired by competitors. 

Ukrainian developers’ skills and knowledge are still unparalleled

Ukraine has been one of the leading software development outsourcing destinations globally for several years already. Ukrainian programming talent  coupled with their practical experience and English proficiency has also long been recognized worldwide. 

However, there is one more reason why foreign companies are still eager to hire Ukrainian development teams. The fact is that the war put Ukrainians’ innate fortitude, endurance and diligence into the spotlight. Now, the whole world knows them from both professional and personal perspectives, having discovered that Ukrainian people are built differently. They proceed with projects development from the bomb shelters and underground; they equipped workplaces in the corridors of their apartments using a chair and a blanket and nevertheless,  made their jobs done.

While the Russian invasion deprived most of them of peace, a usual life and even homes, their knowledge, skills, experience and talent are still their intellectual property assets that nobody will ever be able to take away. 

Ukrainian women in tech support the IT sector from abroad

On August 12, 2022, martial law in Ukraine was extended for another 90 days by the  Decree of the President of Ukraine (No. 573/2022). The ban on leaving Ukraine for men of military age (18-60 years) also remained in force. That’s why the majority of Ukrainian male programmers live and work in Ukraine, partially relocating from the Eastern border cities to the central and Western parts of the country. 

Women, in turn, are free to leave the country, and despite only 9% of Ukrainian tech talent being female, those who moved abroad also actively help the IT industry stay resilient. They proceed with paying taxes to the Ukrainian treasury, launch new projects to create additional remote work opportunities for Ukrainians, and raise awareness in Western society about Ukrainian reality right now. 

Leading tech companies didn’t close their R&D offices in Ukraine 

There are a lot of US tech companies with Research & Development (R&D) offices in Ukraine, and many of them didn’t stop their operations despite the war. For example, here is what is stated on Oracle’s official website:

“Oracle supports the people of Ukraine and is against the illegal attack on their country. Oracle’s operations in Ukraine remain active, and we are doing everything we can to ensure the safety of our employees and their families, as well as to support our Ukrainian customers and partners.”

Grammarly, one of the Ukrainian unicorn startups and one of the greatest examples of companies founded in Ukraine, also keeps their Kyiv office open and proceeds with doing its job. And the list of tech companies which didn’t stop their operation in Ukraine can go on. 

Main tech hubs in Ukraine to hire developers

The eastern part of Ukraine, namely Kharkiv, was the first to take the blow of the Russian army. Just over half a year ago, Kharkiv was on its way to becoming a major regional IT powerhouse, being also a home of more than 45,000 IT specialists and 500 tech firms. Most of them were forced to relocate to other cities in Ukraine – Dnipro, Kyiv and Lviv. Now, these cities offer safer conditions for business deployment and project development, so pay attention to them if you plan to hire web developers in Ukraine. 

• Dnipro. Dnipro can be proud of being one of the greatest IT clusters in Ukraine. This city is home to such famous Ukrainian IT companies as SoftServe, Luxoft and Yalantis. There are nearly 400 IT businesses and 16,000 ICT specialists here. Though Dnipro can’t be considered 100% safe since it is located not so far from the Russian border, most tech companies maintained their operations in the city. 
• Kyiv. Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, was and remains the main tech hub of the country. Now, 30% of Ukrainian tech talent works in 300 tech companies registered in Kyiv. The Russian authorities were unable to “take Kyiv in three days”, and now, life in the city goes on as usual, while the city is still attractive to investors and owners of tech startups. 
• Lviv. Lviv is a sign-rich and historical city which authentically mixes Ukrainian native culture with Eastern European one. This city was usually in the spotlight of European companies uneager to work out of time zones with their team and prioritizing the opportunity to meet their developers in person. After the beginning of the war, the Lviv region accepted more than 30,000 internal refugees, and ICT workers from Eastern Ukraine are among them. 

How much does it cost to hire a Ukrainian programmer in 2022?

Let us bet you’re asking yourself questions like “How much does it cost to hire developers in Ukraine?” or “How did the average pay rate of a software developer in Ukraine change during the war?” As it was researched by DOU, Ukrainian developers’ salaries didn’t drop, which proves a good balance of talent demand and supply. What’s more, the rates to hire Ukrainian developers remain pretty competitive, especially given the value your project will get after hiring them. 

Let’s take a look at the numbers. 

Ukrainian developers’ salaries by seniority (median salary per month in $)

Ukrainian programmers’ salaries by programming language (median salary per month in $)

Winter 2021-22/summer 2022 salary levels comparison (per month in $)

3 risk-free ways to hire a development team in Ukraine

Following the examples of globally known IT companies with R&D centers in Ukraine, a lot of foreign companies were recently eager to set up a back office in this country too. 

However,  the war changed the business environment dramatically, making remote work a safer and wiser approach to project development when compared to running an office in Ukraine locally. So, instead of outsourcing software development or opening your R&D in Ukraine, consider hiring Ukrainian developers remotely. 

At this point, you are likely to argue that hiring a dedicated development team in Ukraine while the war goes on will only add mess and confusion to the recruitment process, making team management even more challenging, creating communication barriers and increasing the hiring costs. Well, there is a bit of truth in such concerns, and that’s why hiring Ukrainian software developers with the help of a talent sourcing vendor will be more effective, less risky, less costly and much faster. 

Below are battle-proven ways to hire a remote team in Ukraine despite martial law. 

Sourcing-as-a-service

Sourcing-as-a-service is the fastest option to hire a dedicated team in Ukraine, leveraging the power of Big data and hiring automation technologies. To deliver the finest-tuned candidates according to your job requirements, we use an AI-driven engine that comes with advanced data matching and analysis features. Such a powerful solution allows for speeding up the hiring process up to 5 times and automating 80% of manual work. As a result, you get the list of top-skilled programmers from Ukraine in a few days and can proceed with interviewing them instantly. 

Most of our customers prefer this service to hire multiple candidates instead of launching several recruitment campaigns on their own or paying extra for partnering with hiring agencies with no tech-enabled talent acquisition practices. 

Get in touch with us right now to give automated hiring a shoot and gather a great tech team in Ukraine! 

Team augmentation

Scaling your in-house team with Ukrainian programmers can also be an exceptionally great solution despite the war. Ukrainian developers already have a proven track of success, and the recent events showed their ability to quickly adjust to the changing environment but still stay productive and responsible for the job to be done.

We, at Bridge, can help you with extending your in-house development team with skilled and experienced programmers from Ukraine. You are welcome to communicate with them directly, interview them on your own and manage an extended team in the way you find effective, while we take care of payroll and taxes.

Apply for staff augmentation service now and make your in-house tech team stronger with Ukrainian developers! 

IT recruitment

IT recruitment is another option to hire developers in Ukraine. In addition to hiring programming talent, this service would be valuable for companies eager to build a remote team from scratch and hire other tech-related specialists. To make the hiring process more effective and easier to manage, we have developed a customer-only recruitment platform, with the help of which you can keep a clear track of your hiring campaigns per position, schedule interviews, select the best-fit candidates and proceed with welcoming them on board. 

No matter what hiring strategy you choose, the Bridge team would be happy to assist you. Let’s stand with Ukraine together!