8 Things You Need To Know About Outsourcing to Ukraine

Outsourcing is what helps many companies optimize their resources; get new ideas from diverse teams; tap into international markets. It gets businesses through talent shortage and helps find teams who are used to remote work, which is a good thing in the pandemic. Software outsourcing is a way to tap into new technologies and products in a cost-effective way.

In Ukraine, IT outsourcing is one of the major branches of the economy. Ukraine also ranks second in the number of freelance software development in Europe and every year about 32 thousand junior developers join the industry. So let's talk about things you should know about outsourcing to Ukraine.

A large and engaged talent pool

Most of the tech experts (56.3%) in Ukraine work in outsourcing and outstaffing service companies. Despite the misconception about people going into IT exclusively because of salaries, the main reasoning behind it isn't money — money is the second reason. The opportunities the tech industry offers to its employees is the first.

Ukraine is a popular destination for IT outsourcing. We have dedication and passion for new tools and different ways we can make people's lives more comfortable, entertaining, or just better. 

Experienced engineers in Ukrainian IT outsourcing 

Outsourcing Journal ranked Ukraine first among outsourcing markets of Eastern Europe. Ukrainian engineers, marketers, and product managers stand behind Grammarly, DepositPhotos, and SolarGaps. Despite the financial struggles, pandemic, and literal war the country is going through right now, Ukraine was ranked in the Top 30 of StartupBlink's 2020 Startup Ecosystem Ranking. Ukrainians are creative problem-solvers, and the international community starts to notice it. 

Our engineers use IT outsourcing as a way to apply their skills of solving high-level business tasks via software development. They are most proficient in Java, C#, JavaScript, PHP, and Python — but don't hesitate to learn new technologies such as Dart and Flutter (check out what they are if you're interested in mobile development.)

Affordability / Cost-efficiency

One of the major reasons businesses worldwide turn to IT outsourcing is to cut budgets. According to Indeed, the average base salary for a software engineer in the USA is $107k/year, whereas, in Ukraine, they get, according to Glassdoor, about $36k/year. Of course, this number ranges in both countries depending on the level of engineer's experience, but the difference stays.

Apart from that, IT outsourcing companies and service companies like BeKey cover all the costs associated with hiring and retaining people. We look for candidates that fit your business and your software idea. We provide health insurance and equipment for remote work if needed. Our senior engineers teach and on-board juniors for the client's project.

People are used to remote work

This is especially critical for the operational process in the middle of a pandemic: the IT outsourcing industry in Ukraine is used to working remotely. As a company, we've been doing it since 2016, but most of our employees have been working from home (or from the Ukrainian office — with international clients) for years before it became mandatory. 

We're good at organizing our projects in a remote-friendly way, at establishing clear communication with different clients working from countries with different timezones.

Competitiveness among outsourcing and service companies

As we've said, IT outsourcing is one of the most earning branches of the Ukrainian economy, so it's obvious businesses enter the industry for financial opportunities as well. A healthy competitive climate makes these businesses (us, as well) work hard and smart to become the best service provider a client can ask for.

We aren't afraid to experiment and offer new insights about products, technologies that can be used to build this product, and market. We want to see our clients succeed, which is why a large part of our efforts goes to market research and rigorous testing.

As we're working with software development for startups, it's imperative for us to help them to gain funds, to engineer fast and in high quality, so founders could show the prototypes or MVPs to first adopters and investors.

The language barrier isn't a problem

85% of Ukrainian IT specialists know and can fluently talk in English. We're committed to increasing that number through free employee education and learning initiatives among businesses.

If they struggle with it, there is a robust system of communication through the project or product manager who leads client-related communications and relays client's requirements to engineers.

This model not only allows junior specialists to learn English more efficiently at their own pace — but it's also a good fit for lots of clients who work on time-sensitive projects and don't have time to engage with a whole team.

Another perspective

IT outsourcing to Ukraine is beneficial for the core part of your projects as well, especially if you want to scale internationally. With an international team, you could gain an outside perspective on your market, industry, and product-market fit. Different people notice different things and details, which allows building comprehensive solutions, localized and user-centric; allows eliminating bias.

Apart from that, we have no problem talking and solving challenges. Ukrainian software engineers teach themselves: more than half of them constantly upgrade their skill set, learning new technologies, or reading new research. One of the reasons for it is, of course, a competition, but another is that there's no way to offer cool engineering solutions via outdated technologies. So we strive to learn new. 

Good for international communication and travel

Ukraine is only one hour ahead of the majority of countries in Europe, and about seven hours ahead of the USA. It's an awesome fit for European businesses (in terms of cost/availability), but lots of American companies easily turn to Ukrainian IT outsourcing, too, as the time difference isn't the biggest among competitor countries like India, the Philippines, and China.

The travel is also easy: most European countries' citizens don't require visas to cross Ukraine's border, and the international flights are relatively cheap in comparison to countries-members of the EU.

In conclusion, take a look at the industries we're building software for (including, but not limited to), what we do for startups — and, if you want a team to build a product for you, contact us. 

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