We interviewed with TechMission in Kyiv, Ukraine to learn more about their goals and the market for tech talent in Ukraine. We are so excited to partner with TechMission!
Tell us a bit about yourselves and your background.
Alex, Co-Founder of TechMission: I have been working in the tech industry since 2013. During that time, I’ve had a chance to work on different roles and management positions and to implement a set of neat complex solutions for products in various industries: InsurTech, HealthCare, IT tools, Finances, e-Commerce/CRM. For the last 3.5 years, I have been leading my service company MasterDynamix where we help businesses to build their great tech products.
Diana, Founder of TechMission: I have been working in the IT Education industry since 2014. During that time I have been launching and running courses for the following profiles: web and mobile development, QA, web design and 2D art, digital marketing, and IT recruitment. 10 years ago, the IT Education market of various specialists was only at its first steps, so different Ukrainian tech companies were easily hiring such graduates. With the growth of the industry, the number of private IT Education courses has increased, hence we have more and more people willing to become IT specialists. Nowadays, tech companies not only require theoretical knowledge from junior-level applicants, they expect such applicants to have practical experience. My additional activity is the preparation and coaching of IT Education graduates for their interviews and getting a first tech job.
Do you believe there is a need for tech talent in Ukraine?
During the last several years we observe a harsh competition in head hunting of tech talents in Ukraine. The industry has grown 26% in 2020 and estimated $4.7 billion. Still, it continues to grow, the salaries are on the high rise as well, and we tend to see a big lack of good developers and engineers.
What would tech talent mean for Ukraine?
According to our experience, every tech company in Ukraine has different standards of the Software Engineering/QA/BA/PM etc. For example, small service companies are ready to hire less experienced developers in order to keep the margin while running Time&Material contracts with foreign clients, while tech product companies or heavily-invested startups are mainly interested in top-notch engineers and tend to pay higher salaries.
How long does it take to become a software developer in Ukraine right now?
Local IT schools have really various sets of programs and tracks. Some of them give you false promises that you’ll become a software engineer in 2-3 months, while the others are ready to teach and mentor you for 6-12 months.
How would you describe the market for tech talent in the Ukraine?
Even though there is a lack of good engineers, the HR market is full of unqualified talents that would like to change their current careers and become software engineers, QA engineers, UI/UX designers or IT Project Managers. The reason is pretty simple, an average Middle-level developer makes 3-5 times higher than an average office employee in Ukraine.
Our investigation has shown that a lot of local Tech Education Institutions do not provide their students with the high-quality programs that would satisfy the modern standards of the tech talent. Most of young applicants succeed with their first IT job only because of their self-motivation and perseverance, not because of the IT courses. When we first got in touch with the Qwasar team, we understood that their methods of education might be what our local market needs. That is why we decided to start “Tech Mission” in Ukraine.
What are some of the advantages that you see in hands-on learning compared to traditional knowledge transfer?
Only when having practical tasks and projects a student realizes what they will be doing on their jobs during the next several years. With the good basis of practical skills, such specialists will easily adapt to their first project and will have less stress. Another advantage of such method is that despite the lack of commercial working experience, these candidates will have higher salaries at the start only because of their portfolio. Moreover, their monthly wages and the career will also grow faster.
It is really sad that our state universities usually don’t have modern software engineering learning tracks except for theory classes. Most of them are not teaching modern technologies and programming languages / frameworks. Therefore, young specialists usually have only one way out - to go to private IT schools. And they have to choose them wisely.
What are employers looking for in candidates in Kyiv?
During the last year, there was a huge offset to the remote work, so working ‘on-site’ has become more an option rather than a must. As said above, different companies mostly have different approaches to their recruitment standards, but all of them have one common thing. No one wants to hire a candidate who doesn’t have real-life experience for the current position since it is a big risk. If a candidate already has a portfolio or proven track of projects, then we can continue our discussion. Otherwise, the candidate can be easily lost in the tons of other CV’s and their chances are really low.
Of course, it is still important to have the willingness to learn new things and evolve your skills, be agile in terms of collaboration and have a good level of English and soft-skills.
How can people apply to the program?
Diana: We have a website https://techmission.pro, anyone who is interested can apply and leave their contacts. Our managers will contact all applicants. I am also running free webinars for people who want to become Software or QA/QC Engineers on a monthly basis where they can get a lot of useful information and ask questions.
Feel free to follow TechMission on their social platforms below:
Thank you again to Alex and Diana at TechMission for their time in completing this interview with us!
