How to Hire a Dedicated Development Team in Ukraine: Reasons, Benefits, Process

Are you a startup founder, chief technology officer, or head of product delivery looking to hire a dedicated development team in Ukraine? If yes, continue reading to learn the following:

Why should you hire a software development company in Ukraine? Three examples of well-known startups that use a Ukraine-based development team; What are the options for hiring a dedicated team from Ukraine? Software development rate in Ukraine; How much would it cost to hire a dedicated team in Ukraine? And more! If you prefer visual to text, then go straight to the bonus infographic “How to hire a dedicated development team in Ukraine?”

Let’s dive into the crux of the article.

Why Should You Consider Hiring a Dedicated Team in Ukraine? Ukraine is one of the juiciest destinations for many the US and European startups due to its competitive prices, exceptional work, and huge talent pool.

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic downturn, Ukraine’s outsourcing sector saw a 20% increase in 2020. In the same 2020, the country’s IT outsourcing accounted for 8.3% of its total export.

Below are some reasons to consider opting for a dedicated team.

Reason 1. Cost Opting for Ukraine-based software developers, either by dedicated software development team model or outstaffing, is a more cost-effective option than hiring Western Europeans or Americans. How?

According to this article, costs related to software development vary with location. For example, hiring a US-based developer will cost about 120-150$ per hour, while the UK and Australian-based ones both cost 100-120$ an hour. However, a Ukrainian developer will cost $30-50 hourly.

Note: A dedicated Ukraine-based team may bill you higher than this depending on the functionality, project complexity, project methodology, and onboarding process.

Beyond cost, another benefit to hiring an agency in Ukraine is the quality of deliverables.

Reason 2. Quality As any tech lead knows, there’s no substitute for quality coding. Poor code often results in bugs, technical debt, cost overruns, and missed deadlines. So it may be surprising to some, but Ukrainian developers write better codes than US-based coders.

A report released by HackerRank shows that Ukraine-based developers are much better than those domiciled in the US or the UK. The statistic rated the US software developers 27th globally on 550 technical assessments. In contrast, Ukrainian application developers ranked 5th globally.

Other than quality, another benefit to outsourcing to Ukraine is the country’s talent pool. Let’s also talk a bit about that.

Reason 3. Talent Pool Ukraine has more than 200,000 IT specialists, and this figure keeps growing at an astronomical rate. Beyond this, over 20,000 graduates from IT-related sources enter the nation’s IT sphere yearly. With that in mind, it’s safe to conclude that Ukraine has one of the world’s largest bodies of IT specialists.

Another reason to patronize a Ukrainian tech agency is the nation’s tech community. What does that mean?

Reason 4. Tech Community Ukraine has a vibrant tech community. The country houses some of the largest European tech events, including Dev_Challenge, Lviv IT Arena, and the Agile Eastern Europe Conference. The Eastern European nation also features a significant IT community and clusters that hold frequent conferences and meetups.

The nation’s tech community has proven itself as a leader in some noteworthy tech stacks. Let’s dwell on that a bit.

The illustration shows some of the reasons why it is worth hiring a dedicated team in Ukraine Reason 5: Tech Stacks Ukraine-based software developers have expertise in a variety of tech stacks. According to the Ukraine Digital News and Aventures, the most proficient programming languages in the country are:

Javascript (18.4%) Java (15.4%) C# (13.7%) Python (13.2%) PHP (10.8%) Another LinkedIn research shows the spread of program-specific developers. This report shows that the country has 9,000 PHP developers, 8,000 Javascript developers, 8,000 Java developers, 3,000 Python developers, and 1,000 Ruby on Rails Software developers.

Ukraine is currently the best globally by several high-quality C++ engineers and Unity 3D developers. It’s ranked second in the number of Magneto, Scala, and JavaScript developers.

The software development outsourcing industry in Ukraine has the 3rd highest number of developers for PHP, Symfony, Ruby, ASP.NET, Python, and Node.js languages.

Thus, Ukraine is a suitable location if you’re interested in hiring a dedicated web development team or assembling an app development team here.

Reason 6: Work Ethics and Culture Compatibility Due to the significant disparity in earnings of junior and senior-level professionals, Ukrainian developers are very motivated to advance faster. As such, Ukrainian developers are committed to their jobs.

Beyond financial perks, 82% of software developers in the country say they work in software development because they’re interested in the technology. Programmers in Eastern Europe tend to rely on clear requirements and detailed planning. And as soon as they have a clear understanding of your requirements, they intuitively create your desired solution.

Ukrainian developers are generally communicative, open-minded, and share western culture and values.

Reason 7: The extent of English Proficiency Another statistic about the country that’s worthy of note is that 85% of developers in outsourcing speak English. This is because some Ukrainian software outsourcing companies make English fluency a criterion for selecting their developers.

Also, most software development and IT outsourcing agencies in Ukraine offer free English classes for their employees. This increases their proficiency.

With this in mind, you can benefit maximally from the nation’s talent pool as there’ll be little or no language barrier.

The illustration shows the reasons why you should hire a dedicated software development team in Ukraine Reason 8: Time Zone Ukraine is geographically located in a time zone that’s an hour to most European countries. Ukraine-based developers share 7 out of 9 business hours with most western nations.

For comparison, a London-based startup collaborating with a software development agency in the Philippines only shares three business hours.

Ukraine’s timezone makes it very convenient for nearshoring as it guarantees smooth workflow and communication between dispersed teams.

The nation is also well suited as a preferred offshore choice for US-based startups. The 7-hour time zone difference between the East Coast and Ukraine provides more suitable shared working hours than the Philippines, Vietnam, India, and other prominent outsourcing destinations.

Reason 9: Globally Recognized Region Top-notch tech products and collaborating effectively with foreign tech startups make Ukraine stand out in web development outsourcing or app development outsourcing.

As of now, it holds numerous awards as the most desirable region for tech outsourcing. For example, it ranks first in the category of Outsourcing Marketing in Eastern Europe Ranking.

The country also ranks first in the Science and Technology category of The Good Country Index. It’s also worthy of note that many tech giants like Huawei, Samsung, Oracle, and Microsoft have an R&D office there.

Illustration shows why it is worth hiring a dedicated team of Ukrainian product developers As an inspiration to outsource with an East Europe country, we’ll discuss some startups doing that.

3 Examples of Well-known Companies that Hire Ukrainian Development Team Below is a compendium of well-funded startups that outsource development to Ukraine through IT outsourcing vendors. This list has startups that have raised more than $2M and are fast-growing.

Example 1. SMARTLING Smartling is a startup that helps localize content across various platforms and devices through its cloud-based translation management system.

What’s awesome about Smartling: is they were declared a leader in the “G2 Crowd Grid for Translation Management” in 2019.

In early 2020, the company reported a 211% year-over-year increase.

Vimeo, Kodak, Shutterstock, Spotify, TED, Pinterest, and Slideshare are among the company’s clients.

Start Date Target Market Headquarters Raised Fund 2009 Smartling targets startups that want a multilingual product. New York, USA $223.1 million Example 2. SHAPE Shape is a Germany-based startup that offers several products under various categories, including social networking, entertainment, utilities, and productivity.

Its cut-out solution is an IM+, iDisplay, Business Card Reader, Sicher with millions of users.

Shape has formed noteworthy alliances with leading tech companies and online distributors such as Apple, Oracle, Google, and more within the last decade.

The startup is undoubtedly a leading web-based services provider and independent vendor. The company currently uses software engineers based in Odesa, Ukraine.

Start Date Target Audience Headquarters Raised Fund 1999 The company’s target audience is end-users and customers in need of software products. Stuttgart, Germany $10 million Example 3. ELEMENTUM Elementum is a US-based startup that automates supply chain processes. It also helps to unify logistics, procurement, inventory, and manufacturing operations in real-time.

Elementum has won a wide range of awards, part of which include Glassdoor’s Best Place to Work. BASF was one of the first startups to leverage Elementum’s technology.

Now, the company’s solution is being used by Dyson, Office Depot, OSI, Flex, and many more. Elementum’s development team is currently located in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Start date Target Audience Headquarters Raised Fund 2012 Elementum is a B2B startup that targets businesses with complex logistics structures. California, United States $67 million This picture describes examples of well-known companies that hire Ukrainian development teams for their own projects Now that you’re inspired to outsource your software development process to a Ukrainian IT company let’s educate you on your options.

What are the Options for Hiring a Product Development Team from Ukraine A software vendor builds a product development team from the ground up. Albeit, this team is tailored to fit a client’s expectations and project requirements.

The offshore development team takes care of recruiting team members and aligns the team’s workflow with laid out developmental processes.

In the instance of an external and internal team, the vendor may help to synchronize the team effort to ensure top-notch effectiveness.

Let’s elucidate further on the different team models available.

Model 1. Hiring a Dedicated Team for Long-term Co-operation One of the most prominent outsourcing models is partnering with an offshore development team for long-term goals.

This model often consists of remote software engineers and support professionals that are tasked with designing, building, and maintaining software according to project expectations.

The workforce employed by the vendor work full-time on your project.

This project is best suited for:

Well-funded, long-term continuous projects; Startups that lack the resources or time to hire developers in-house; Lack of technical expertise needed to develop and manage a project within your product among in-house developers. Opt for this option if it aligns with your expectations.

The illustration shows the first model of hiring a dedicated product development team from Ukraine, based on long-term cooperation Model 2. Hiring Resources to Expand your Team The crux of this model centers around outsourcing to an expert with a specific skill you need in your in-house team. This outsourcing model ensures that strategic competencies remain within the confines of your office environment. This production outsourcing model centers around time and materials contracts.

Let’s take this example for a better understanding of this outsourcing model. Let’s assume you need 1 or 2 back-end developers with technical expertise in Python: you can approach a vendor to provide you with a suitable Python developer with requisite years of experience.

With this outsourcing model, your startup reduces project management, ingestion, and payroll cost. It also gives your full control over the team’s workflow and productivity.

Lastly, this model cancels out cumber recruitment processes and employment formalities.

The illustration shows the second model of hiring a dedicated product development team from Ukraine, necessary to expand your team Model 3. Hiring a Team on a Project Basis This outsourcing model is quite antagonistic to the first described model. How? It involves hiring a team of developers to execute a single task for your team. For example, let’s say your product is a website builder.

The development process consists of a subset of projects: template constructor, collaborative review tool, drag-and-drop constructor, and so on.

Due to the project’s complexity, your in-house team may build a template constructor and co-review tool, while the drag-and-drop constructor is developed by the outsourced team.

In this outsourcing model, a startup outlines a list of deliverables they want to a development service provider.

Then the founder discusses their expectation with the team’s project manager or a business analyst. These professionals then communicate the expectation to their team members and ensure the team meets set-out milestones.

This outsourcing model works best for startups in need of:

A quick solution; A cost-efficient workflow; A sophisticated one-off project with quick deliverables.

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