Highlights for busy readers:
The number of vacancies for IT specialists in the German labor market rose to 96.000 in 2021, with 2 in 3 surveyed companies expecting that the shortage of IT specialists will continue to worsen in the future, with every unfilled IT position putting a strain on companies’ ability to innovate and slows down the necessary digital transformation according to experts at the Federal Association of IT, Telecommunications and New Media Companies (BITKOM).
Moreover, according to the survey of more than 800 managing directors and HR managers at companies with three or more employees, it takes on average six months to fill an IT position.
As a result, there is a strong need for more efficient IT recruitment and outsourcing models.
Faced with the aforementioned challenges, CEE countries, especially Poland, have become an attractive destination for companies located in Western Europe to find experienced and competitively priced IT talent. Poland stands out among them as a unique outsourcing opportunity that brings together an outstanding skillset and a modern technology environment.
But why does working with Polish IT Specialists seems to be a perfect fit for many fast-growing DACH start-ups and scale-ups? Some reasons are below.
Since Poland has been attracting clients from all around the world lately (thanks to its very affordable IT services), local engineers have become used to working in international settings and following all the key industry standards. Their creativity and engagement in global projects are the reasons why they gather experience in an extremely short period.
According to the Developer Survey conducted by Stack Overflow on a group of over 65,000 programmers, more than half of Polish professionals participating in the survey have between 5 and 9 years of experience in professional coding. This is almost twice as much as the global result (26.8%), as most respondents of the survey worldwide are programmers with up to 5 years of experience (39.6%).
What’s more, polish developers are strongly focused on leveraging the latest tools, technologies, and practices to benefit their Customers.
Data source: Stack Overflow 2020 report
Poland is known for its high level of education and increased focus on science, technology, and mathematics. Programmers in Poland are not only skilled professionals but also persons with a directional education enabling faster acquisition of further competencies. The number of universities where you can major in computer science and engineering is constantly increasing, there are more than 350 institutions of higher education in Poland where you can get a degree in IT or STEM.*
The quality of education in Poland is getting better every year. Students have ample opportunities to train their skills by completing internships at world-known companies such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. A great number of educational programs offered at Polish universities are recognized worldwide as a valuable source of knowledge and expertise. They offer a wide range of courses covering all aspects of technology – not only programming courses but also courses in telecommunications and IT security.
Below we present a map of the most important educational centers in Poland that offer directional education in the ICT sector.
In 2020, there were 75,000 ICT students and nearly 17,000 graduates available for recruitment. The universities that can boast of ICT graduates are Warsaw University of Technology, Jagiellonian University and AGH University of Science in Krakow, and the Wroclaw University of Technology.
The Polish IT community accounts for nearly 25% of the entire developer population in the Central and Eastern European region. With the number of ITC graduates at 80,000 every year, the base of available on-demand IT specialists is likely to increase sharply in the next few years. Therefore, across Poland, you can easily find qualified people and assemble a team of the right specialists with vast experience in various technologies.
In addition to top-notch university centers across Poland, you can find many meetups, hackathons, and workshops organized by both software companies and educational institutions in every major Polish city. Since many software agencies in Poland want to attract young talent, they offer entry-level positions that focus on professional development and mentoring. This has created a large community of skilled IT experts and programmers in Poland.
3. Language Proficiency
The 2021 EF EPI report confirms that the level of language proficiency in Poland and worldwide is increasing. Poland is one of the countries that speak it most fluently, which is due to the increasing mobility of Poles and a growing interest in language travel abroad.
According to the EPI data presented in the below table, Poland ranks 16th out of 100 countries in the English Proficiency Index, with a high proficiency mark – the second-highest mark a country can get. In the light of the European countries, Poland ranked high in the 4th place, while among the countries of the CEE region Poland was among the leaders right behind Croatia, Serbia, and Romania, in the 4th place.
Language barriers can be a huge communication hindrance when outsourcing, and, although there is a good level of English speaking developers elsewhere in the world – India, for example – the level of English-speaking developers in Poland, combined with the favorable proximity and relatively smaller cultural gap means that Poland is fast becoming a more popular choice than it has ever been for UK and US companies looking to outsource development teams.
As far as Polish developers’ competencies in speaking German are concerned, according to the 2021 Developer Survey, it is the second most popular foreign language after English and is currently used by approx. 16% of local developers. Other languages spoken by Polish developers are Russian, Spanish, French, and Italian.
Polish developers are known for their proficiency in general technical knowledge. Polish IT professionals get the highest ranks in international programming contests like Microsoft Imagine Cup, Google Code Jam, TopCoder, or the Central European Programming Contest (CEPC) every year.
HackerRank, a leading tech platform that analyzes data from more than 1.5 million members, posted an extensive ranking of the countries with the best programmers, as well as breakdowns by specific competencies like algorithms, data structures, AI, and security. HackerRank specialists conducted analyses of the effectiveness of solving tasks in 15 different categories such as „algorithms”, „data structures” or programming languages (C++, Java, Python, Ruby, etc.).
In the overall assessment, Poles ranked third (behind China and Russia). It is worth noting that in this ranking the USA was ranked only 28th and India 31st, although these are the countries with the highest number of programmers in the world.
It turned out that statistically, programmers from individual countries „specialize” in certain categories. For example, Poland was ranked first in solving problems using Java, and Japan in tasks related to artificial intelligence. Also noteworthy is the high position of Polish programmers in categories such as Algorithms, Tutorials, Python, and Shell – in all of these cases, Poland was ranked among the TOP5 global leaders.
Polish development teams are experienced in applying global and industry standards, practices, and methodologies such as agile software development within Scrum. Did you know that Poland hosts some of the most important agile-related events, such as the AC conference? Familiarity with different workflows, tools, and practices is only one side of the coin. The other is about the local professional culture. The fact that Poland shares many cultural seminars with its western neighbors makes collaboration run more smoothly. Local customs and work habits are not that different, and they do not affect the quality of teamwork and communication during the project.
6. Booming IT market environment
Poland is the largest country in Central and Eastern Europe and the 6th largest in Europe. The Polish economy has been growing steadily for over 25 years and is currently the sixth-largest economy in the European Union, with GDP per capita above 70% of the EU average (in PPP measures). Poland’s IT market development is expected to continue at a robust pace in Poland throughout the medium-term forecast period and consistently outpace GDP growth.
This is because of momentum for digitization and digital transformation trends catalyzed by the pandemic, as well as major ecosystem investments by global leaders including Microsoft, Google, Equinix, and Meta. The cloud market is primed for growth after major investment announcements in 2020 by hyperscale vendors. In May 2020, Microsoft announced it would invest USD1bn in a data center and cloud region in Poland, and then in June 2020, Google announced it would invest USD1.5-2bn in a GCP data center hosting a region in Warsaw, with service availability beginning in 2021.
Outsourcing is almost always considered and implemented because of cost. Poland has been an outsourcing leader in Europe for some time now, as the relatively low cost of labor is perfectly matched by the excellent skills the country can offer. Combined with the fact that Poland is one of Europe’s most successful economies, its large market, and of course the highest educational standards, it stands out as the heart of the CEE region when it comes to attracting talented software teams.
According to the HackerRank salary table, you can find and hire highly experienced Polish developers for under $3.500 a month, which is ca. $40.000 a year. Comparing these rates to German experts, or even Silicon Valley talents, be prepared to spend between $65,000 – $110,000 per programmer per year.
Poland’s strategic location in the Central European time zone allows for more efficient management of daily workflows and meetings than for teams located in countries like India or China. What’s more, in such places, where language and cultural barriers can be an even bigger problem, the fact that working hours are almost opposite each other means that communication can become very difficult indeed.
Another key advantage of the country’s location is its proximity to major European financial centers like Frankfurt, Paris, and London. For example, if you’re building a financial services solution and would like to keep close to the industry, Polish software developers are at your fingertips.
9. High level of security
Because Poland is a member of the European Union, it complies with all information technology and data security regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). By working with a Polish staffing company, you can rest assured that your data is in good hands. Polish developers are always familiar with relevant regulatory structures and laws, and follow industry best practices and standards where necessary.
Wrapping this all up…
As you can see, there’s no better country to hire IT experts than Poland being one of the most attractive countries for team augmentation services. Polish specialists can easily combine their skills with a flexible approach and partner with well-known corporations and start-ups. Companies from all over the world come to Poland for various reasons, but one of them is the excellent talent of young developers.
For this reason, we recommend that you find trusted partners that will help you to navigate the legal and financial aspects of hiring IT developers and to support you in an efficient recruitment process, in addition to offering technical consultancy. If you want to find out more about the services we offer, feel free to contact us. We’re confident we can find the right solutions for you and assist you in your recruitment journey in the IT sector in Poland.
Staff Augmentation in Poland with Devmatch
At the core of Devmatch’s business model is building stable, long-term, dedicated IT and engineering teams for clients. As an IT Body Leasing partner, we work as a boutique recruitment agency, interviewing and selecting the best of the best IT experts and engineers on your behalf. We pay attention not only to skills and experience but also to the cultural fit of all candidates with other team members, corporate culture, and your company’s growth ambitions. This allows us to keep your team engaged and motivated during the project.
Devmatch is committed to providing direct communication between each customer and the required team members. English is used as the default language.
The Devmatch team knows how to take a structured and proven approach, whether you’re starting from scratch or expanding an established corporate empire. Together, we identify your human capital needs, then determine your business and project-specific requirements so that newly hired talent feels at home from day one. It takes an average of 2 to 4 weeks to hire dedicated development experts and get started.
If you would like to hire a Polish engineering team or need several specialists for your project, contact us now.
Our team is always ready to help with the hiring process.
