SOS: Where do I find the software developers I desperately need?
4. Oktober 2017
Many IT companies desperately lack software developers. In Denmark, we often hear news stories about IT companies that have to reject business opportunities, because they are unable to find software developers with the required competences. One solution to the above challenge is to establish a development team abroad!
When a company evaluates whether or not they should try to outsource some of their software development, many factors have to be taken into consideration; how do we cooperate with a team abroad from another culture, what are their English language skills, and naturally – do foreign software developers have the competences, we need for our business?
After having worked in the outsourcing industry on the Ukrainian market for several years, our answer to the above question is; YES, THEY DO.
Let us tell you a little bit about IT professionals in Ukraine, and in the city Lviv, where Conscensia’s development center is located.
Ukraine has the largest IT outsourcing market in Eastern Europe, and there are more than 1,000 outsourcing companies. More than 90,000 people work in the IT sector in Ukraine, and more than 50,000 of those people are software developers. In the Lviv IT market, there are over 15,000 IT professionals. A profession as a software developer is very popular in Ukraine, as they earn a high salary, compared to other jobs in Ukraine. So Ukrainian universities experience a boost in applicants to the IT related educations, and we see many IT graduates each year in Ukraine. In Lviv, there are over 4,100 new IT graduates each year. As one of our Danish clients stated; “There is plenty of highly skilled IT developers in Ukraine, and Conscensia finds very talented candidates for us to interview.”
In terms of language skills, about 50% of Ukrainian software developers work for US clients, and 35% of software developers work for European companies. As these numbers indicate, most Ukrainian developers are used to working for English-speaking clients and working with clients across borders. Therefore, students at universities are also aware of the importance of having good English skills, in order to work on exciting projects at international companies. One of our Norwegian clients stated: “The software developers are used to English being their working language, so we do not experience any language barriers between our team in Norway and the team in Ukraine. We work together without really thinking about whether our colleague is sitting across the desk or in Lviv.”
So what do average software developers in Lviv look like? They are young – their average age is 26 years old and they have about 4 years of commercial experience. They are also very ambitious – they often go straight to the universities after their graduation from Middle School, which means that they graduate at age 22-23 with a Master’s Degree in their hand. In a Danish context – that is impressive! At Conscensia, our software developers have an average age of 30 and about 7 years of commercial experience – and we actually have a couple of software developers with almost 20 years of commercial experience! Our clients mainly have developers with the following competences: .Net, Java, BI, Frontend, Delphi, Mobile (Android, iOS) and QA.
So please, stop whining about the lack of talented software developers! There are so many skilled software developers abroad – and Conscensia will even help you all the way to find, integrate and retain the software developers, so you can concentrate on the project and accomplish your professional goals!
Let’s start today!
