Virtual teams are an economically viable way to develop software. If you run business in the USA or Western Europe, you’re definitely considering Ukraine as one of outsourcing destinations. Below we share some information to help you make an informed decision about building a virtual team of software developers in Ukraine.
A quick look at the Ukrainian IT industry
Ukraine is among the top software outsourcing destinations according to the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals. Ukrainian outsourcing companies are globally recognized by Outsourcing Journal, CEEOA, Gartner, A.T. Kearney.
Nearly 185,000 developers of all seniority levels work at technology companies and development centers in Ukraine. The country has an abundance of IT service and product companies. In fact, 20% of the world’s leading companies have their R&D centers in Ukraine, such as IBM Ukraine, ABBYY Eastern European Headquarters, Samsung Electronics, and more. As such, Ukrainian specialists have gained substantial collective experience working for global startups and enterprises.
The biggest IT hubs are Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and Dnipro. Kyiv, the capital city, and Lviv, the fastest growing tech hub, are the home to over a half of Ukrainian technical experts. These cities offer hundreds of career opportunities for developers.
Hard skills
Ukraine is a true repository of qualified technology talent. Roughly 60% of technology experts currently working in IT have a Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.
Every year Ukraine produces more than 35K technology graduates. Thanks to a strong tech education base, young specialists are able to compete on an international level when it comes to programming skills. The National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute,” the country’s leading technology institute, is considered to be up to par with European technology universities in terms of the quality of education.
The Ukrainian tech market is filled with professionals of different specializations. Ukrainian developers are skilled in a wide range of programming languages, including the most popular ones like Java, C#, .NET, JavaScript, PHP, and Python. The IT clusters from Kyiv and Lviv jointly with software development companies offer educational opportunities for students willing to work in the IT field after graduation.
Communication
English is used as the official language of the Ukrainian IT sector. Therefore, at least an intermediate proficiency in English is a must to land a job at an IT company. According to a recent report, the majority of IT experts speaks this language at a strong intermediate level. English classes are usually on the perks list of most companies, so there is no problem for IT professionals to improve their language skills.
Cultural affinity
Ukraine offers a close cultural affinity to Western Europe, where workers have a positive mindset, strong work ethics, and open-mindedness. Many Ukrainian developers have already worked abroad or as a part of a distributed team.
IT experts in Ukraine value a healthy work-life balance. Ukrainians are easy to work with because they are not afraid to step forward with ideas and concerns. The same can be applied to sharing experience and the best engineering practices: Ukrainians are more open-minded in this regard as compared to other nations that tend to keep the knowledge inside their social groups.
Flight connections
The largest Ukrainian cities like Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa, have international airports from where one can take direct flights to major cities in Europe and North America. For example, here are the most popular direct flights from Kyiv:
• Kyiv-Frankfurt: 2 hours 20 minutes
• Kyiv-Amsterdam: 2 hours 55 minutes
• Kyiv-London: 3 hours 25 minutes
• Kyiv-New York: 10 hours and 40 minutes
Ukraine is ranked 22nd according to the Global Passport Power Rank. In 2018, Ukrainians can travel to 91 countries visa-free, plus to 46 countries maintaining the visas-upon-arrival policy.
Time zone
Located in a GMT+3 time zone, Ukraine is one hour ahead of Western European companies, which makes it a convenient outsourcing destination because of the real-time communication. At the same time, US-based companies are 7-12 hours behind Ukraine have to adjust to the cross-over hours for communication between the teams, which usually occur in the morning, EST. However, Ukrainian developers can move up the start of their working day to late afternoon to synchronize with the core team located in the head office.
Five reasons to choose NCube when choosing the virtual team partner
- NCube has 11 years’ experience in building virtual teams of skilled software developers based in Ukraine.
- We are a reputable brand on the Ukrainian job market, which enables us to attract the best engineering talent.
- Our portfolio includes startups and established brands and spans fields like Fintech, AI, Marketing, and Healthcare among others.
- We can set up a team of software developers, QA experts, and UI/UX designers in 2-4 weeks if you need to bring your project up to speed.
- We provide software engineers for long-term engagement who act as an extension to your in-house development team. All of the engineers will be solely devoted to your project and work under your management.
NCube builds virtual teams of talented software engineers for companies worldwide. Accelerate your product development by extending your in-house team with Ukrainian developers.
