IT Outsourcing to Bulgaria – Top-Notch Tech Talent and Great Business Culture

Eastern Europe is one of the top software development outsourcing destinations, but given the huge number of attractive countries, making the final choice becomes challenging. In this article, we suggest taking a look at Bulgaria’s IT outsourcing market, discovering more tech-specific facts about this country, and comparing several promising strategies to go for software outsourcing in Bulgaria. 

Things you need to know before hiring remote tech talent in Bulgaria

Let’s analyze the key facts about the Bulgarian economy, its IT market, tech talent pool, and a business culture so that you can get a complete picture of the current business landscape and make a fully-informed choice with your software development outsourcing destination. 

Which Country Has The Best Developers in 2022

Bulgarian economical landscape

As the major part of Eastern European countries, Bulgaria has a service-based economy which has a 30% share. Bulgaria also stands out with a well-developed industrial sector, while the country’s economy shows stable growth across the industries. 

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2019 Global Competitiveness Report, the Bulgarian economy is ranked 49th internationally. The report compared the productivity of countries’ economies, and the rank of Bulgaria places it ahead of all its regional peers. Bulgaria is also a country where doing business is relatively easy. Its ease of doing business index is 61 out of 173. 

Bulgarian IT market

Let’s proceed with reviewing the IT outsourcing in Bulgaira. Bulgaria is a country with a steadily growing sector of information and communication technology (ICT) services. Its annual production value reached 5,714 million euros in 2019 and this figure continues to grow. The turnover of the ICT services industry in Bulgaria has increased by 779.1 million euros since 2019. The Bulgarian Association of Software Companies (BASCOM), also states that in 2020 the IT sector showed a 10% growth in revenue. 

Bulgarian Global Innovation Index (GII), in turn, is 40 out of 129. This figure shows the country’s success in innovation development and can serve as one of the indicators of its tech competitiveness in the global IT market. 

Tech talent pool in Bulgaria

Bulgarian tech talent pool is another reason to consider this destination for hiring a remote team. There are 92,500 tech specialists in this country. While this figure isn’t the highest in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria is the EU Country with the highest rate of gender diversity working in the IT sector. This is a fact that makes the Bulgarian tech talent pool especially prominent. According to Statista, 91.7% of developers globally are males. From this perspective, Bulgaria becomes a great destination for tech projects standing for gender equity. 

As for the skills and knowledge of Bulgarian software engineers, they are highly skilled in Java, Python, and C++, according to HackerRank. What’s more, the country’s HackerRank rating is 12 out of 50. The Global Skills Report 2021 also features cloud computing, database development, and software engineering as the top specializations of Bulgarian developers.

Education and literacy

One of the significant benefits of software engineering outsourcing to Bulgaria is the high literacy rate of the local population, a large share of the degree-holding developers, and their English proficiency. The population literacy rate is 98,4 % in Bulgaria. National Statistical Institute and Sofia Invest also state that the majority of Bulgarian software engineers are university graduates. 

The reason is that Bulgaria is a country with a well-developed system of higher education, which is pretty affordable and diverse. There are 15 universities that offer ICT programs, and 5000 graduates receive engineering diplomas each year. Also, there are 30 private software academies that offer short to mid-term educational programs and 220 well-established high schools that offer ICT programs combined with English classes.

Bulgaria is also a country that promises no language barrier between the local workforce and foreign project owners. 60% of the working-age population (25 to 64 years) speak at least one foreign language and around two-thirds of the students learn English or German. The English Proficiency Index is 580 for Bulgaria – it is a pretty high indicator.

Salaries

The next reason to hire software engineers in Eastern Europe and particularly, in Bulgaria, are competitive salaries of the local developers. Coupled with their high-quality education, practical experience, and English proficiency, outsourcing software development to Bulgaria becomes a cost-effective tactic too. 

The average monthly salary in Bulgaria is $800. Bulgaria’s software developer’s salary, in turn, is  $1900 per month, while the software developer’s hourly rate is $25-50. For comparison, hiring software developers in the US or UK will cost around $100-150 per hour, depending on the core technology, seniority level, and project complexity. 

Business culture in Bulgaria

Bulgarian business culture is largely inspired by Western European and American values. For example, leading Bulgarian companies also prioritize Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Both business owners and employees in Bulgaria highly value punctuality and respect for deadlines. That’s why hiring tech talent in this country and running a project remotely promises fewer collaboration challenges and better efficiency when working out of time zones. 

Face-to-face communication is another distinctive feature of Bulgarian business culture. Additionally, the convenient location of the country facilitates it – Bulgaria is up to 2-3 hours flight from Western European cities and up to 10 hours flight from the US, depending on the state. 

Additional facts about Bulgaria

Bulgaria is located in the center of the Balkan peninsula. Its time zone is GMT+2, which is 2-3 hours ahead of Western Europe countries and up to 7 hours ahead of the US. 

Sofia is the main Bulgarian tech hub. It is ranked among the top 20 tech cities in Europe. According to Sofia Invest’s 2020 report, the Bulgarian capital is a major ICT center in the country, employing over 50,000 people in the region. Sofia is also ranked third in the list of top cost-effective fintech development destinations. 

What outsourcing strategy should you choose?

So, IT outsourcing to Bulgaria promises a winning match of tech talent’s proficiency, competitive cost to hire Bulgarian developers, growing economy and favorable business environment, plus convenient time zone and location with no language barrier. Now, let’s compare the software development outsourcing strategies to define the one that suits your project best. 

Team augmentation

IT team augmentation is a great tactic for the projects with an in-house tech team already gathered, but facing the urgent need to scale the team to meet the upcoming deadlines and better cope with an increased workload. Below are the pros and cons of this strategy. 

IT Team Augmentation: How It Compares to Other Models

Pros

• Team augmentation is a more cost-effective option compared to hiring additional team members in-house.
• Team augmentation works perfectly when there are no specific professionals in the local labor market.
• It is a flexible tactic, since you hire for a service instead of hiring people.

Cons

• Onboarding an augmented team can be challenging.
• Finding the necessary talent in a remote labor market can be time-consuming.

To deal with the team augmentation challenges highlighted above, consider getting in touch with a talent sourcing vendor. Their practical experience in sourcing the requested candidates and deep understanding of the destinations’ market make the process of scaling an in-house team with remote developers easier and more efficient. 

Bridge recruiting experts would be happy to help you with team extension, sourcing Bulgarian developers who have practical experience in working as an augmented unit. 

Reach out to us today and scale your team with the best-fit tech candidates! 

Hiring a team from scratch

Gathering a development team from Bulgarian developers is another value-adding tactic to consider. Given the tech and business benefits of the destination, as well as the high quality of the local developers, you can be pretty confident in your future project success, especially if you consider the help of a talent sourcing company. 

Pros

• Hiring a remote team is more cost-effective compared to maintaining an in-house one.
• This tactic allows for bridging the talent gap if there are no specific candidates within the local talent pool. 

Cons

• You have to manage your remote team on your own.
• Finding perfect-fit candidates in a specific country can be challenging if there is a lack of local market specifics understanding.

That’s why using IT recruitment is a smarter idea compared to gathering a team in Bulgaria on your own. For example, our local recruiters can quickly get in touch with the best-matched candidates and vet them for your project. As the next step, you are welcome to use our customer-only platform for candidate management and interviewing. Bridge, in turn, takes care of payroll and compliance, after you decide on your hires.

Minimize the risks and save costs by hiring a remote team in Bulgaria with Bridge. Contact us now for hiring support! 

Using sourcing as a service

Also, there is one more winning strategy to consider if you need to quickly unlock the Bulgarian tech labor market opportunities. Sourcing as a service is a perfectly-suitable offer for the companies that aren’t ready to launch a full-scaled hiring campaign right now, but would like to get a list of fitting tech candidates in advance. 

Pros

• Sourcing as a service speeds up the search for suitable specialists.
• The suggested candidates match your job requisition accurately.
• You can pre-select the candidates now and get back to them in the future, saving time and resources.

Cons

• You will have to get in touch and interview the suggested candidates on your own.

Consider sourcing as a service from Bridge. Our local market expertise allows us to suggest the best hiring choices for your future project and quickly choose the top candidates from Bulgaria! 

Conclusion

Bulgaria is one of the most attractive destinations for software outsourcing and hiring remote talent in Eastern Europe. The country stands out with its best-in-class tech specialists who are skilled with the most popular technologies, are fluent in English, and stand for European business culture values.

Bridge, in turn, would be happy to help you with reaching out to them. Decide on the hiring strategy that suits you best and get in touch with us to streamline the recruitment process, cut costs, minimize risks and make the best hiring choices for your project.

Drop us a line now!