What is common among Grammarly, Readdle, YouScan, MacPaw, and Depositphotos?
They are all successful software product development companies that secured big investments. And they are all of Ukrainian origin.
If this fact surprises you, then you might be missing something not only interesting but useful too.
IT Powerhouse On The Rise
Ukraine is known for many things, from its charming tourist places to its rich history. However, what you really need to know is Ukraine’s fast rise as a software powerhouse.
If you look beneath those companies, there are many other potential software rockstars. Looksery and Ring were already acquired by Snapchat and Amazon, respectively. Then there are cutting-edge applications like Allset, Attendify, Competera, Invisible.io, People.ai, Preply, Restream and YayPay. Among them are smart payment apps to new age restaurant-booking tools to sophisticated streaming services.
Why Ukraine Is Shining in Programming
For a start, Ukraine is known for its well educated tech staff – most of the IT engineers have bachelor and masters degrees.
There are many institutions and universities that provide good quality technical education. Unlike that of some of the other countries, where the focus is solely on carrying out outsourced jobs, Ukraine’s IT sector focuses on product development too.
The IT companies in Ukraine have become the favourites of many business giants in the world. This is mainly because of the uncompromising quality they maintain in their works.
The following aspects make Ukraine an attractive proposition for those looking to outsource their software development:
• Well-trained IT professionals
• Good academic environment
• Positive business environment
• Excellent price-quality ratio
Well-trained IT professionals
At present, nearly 175k IT professionals are working in Ukraine. Around 45% of them are employed in IT outsourcing companies. The number of software professionals in Ukraine is steadily increasing in recent years. The IT Ukraine Association expects a huge hike in the number of IT professionals in the upcoming years.
Good Academic Environment
The Universities in Ukraine provide training to their students both in theoretical and practical aspects. The training helps students get placed and perform well in the top IT companies. Last year, nearly 23,000 IT graduates passed out from various universities in Ukraine.
Among the total IT professionals in the country, 83% have done their higher studies in universities. Among this 83%, around 56% studied programming. The most selected programming languages are Java, JavaScript, C#, PHP, C++ and Python. Some IT firms in Ukraine conduct educational programmes and technical courses for those who are interested to get placed in the IT field.
Positive Business Environment
Ukraine has a favourable business environment, especially for the IT sector. The rules and regulations for conducting business in the country are simple and straightforward. That is the reason why many tech giants have started business in Ukraine.
Top companies like Huawei, Snapchat, Siemens, Oracle and Samsung have R&D centres in Ukraine.
Excellent price-quality ratio
You might have heard about the prices of IT services in Ukraine – they’re extremely competitive. And they don’t compromise the quality! How is it possible? We covered this topic at length in this article.
Success Stories in Ukrainian IT Sector
The growth of Ukrainian product companies in the international stage speaks volumes about the country’s potential as an IT hub. Here are thumbnail sketches of the five companies.
Grammarly
Grammarly is a web-based service that helps to improve the quality of the writing by eliminating grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in English. It was created by three Kyiv natives Dmytro Lider, Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko in 2009.
Even though the Headquarters of Grammarly is now based in San Francisco, most of its developers still work in Ukraine. Today, Grammarly has nearly 6.9 million users per day.
Dmytro Lider said in a recent interview: “Essentially, Grammarly is a product of Ukrainian society. We prefer to work with what we have, look for opportunities, and think about how to leverage them. We’re trying to do our work well.”
Readdle
Readdle is a mobile application development company based in Odessa, Ukraine. The company has a host of products that are available internationally. PDF Expert and Spark are the most popular products of the company.
Readdle’s story is a remarkable one. They have been developing products for all sorts of purposes with a single aim: “to make people more productive by enabling technology to millions.”
YouScan
YouScan is a social behavior analysis platform powered by image recognition technology. It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyse brand sentiments. The major clients of YouScan include Nestle, Coca-Cola and Michelin.
MacPaw
MacPaw was founded by the Kyiv native Оlexander Kosovan in 2008. The company develops apps to improve the productivity of Apple computers. MacPaw’s CleanMyMac app is one of the best-selling applications for cleaning up MacBooks.
Depositphotos
Depositphotos attempts a revolution in the global photobank industry. This online service provides a platform between sellers and buyers with a stock of more than 60 million high-quality photos, videos and images. Today it is one of the top five content platforms in the world with customers from nearly 200 countries.
Conclusion
Looking at the success stories, Ukraine has undoubtedly become one of the hottest IT hubs in Europe. It’s reinforced by the top international companies choosing Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv, Kharkiv or Dnipro for conducting their next big ventures.
The present times require all businesses to go for innovative and out-of-the-box thinking and measures. Ukraine should naturally be on the list of new destinations, especially for software development. Once that happens, you would not be surprised anymore by world-conquering software products from Ukraine.
At Bunch Consulting, we strive to make the best out of the unique Ukrainian IT ecosystem and deliver great software projects. Contact us at hello@bunch.consulting and let’s talk about outsourcing possibilities for your business.
