ACCORDING TO A REPORT published by AVentures Capital, Aventis Capital and Capital Times, the CEE region, otherwise known as emerging Europe, is a tech talent goldmine. Hex sent a two man team to explore three of the countries featured in the report : Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, and in addition to these we included Croatia.
The two scouts were tasked to delve deeper into three of the four countries covered by the report. The team spent a minimum of one month in the capital city of each country; first in Warsaw, then in Zagreb, following that in Kiev and finally Minsk.
The Belarus High Technologies Park (HTP) provides opportunities for the development of the IT industry and incentives for investors.
Residents of HTP enjoy a variety of tax breaks, including VAT, profit tax, and customs duties (just 1% of the revenue). Individual income tax is fixed at 9% for employees of resident companies. Click here to see how it works.
Unlike similar parks in Europe and Asia, companies are not required to be physically located inside the Park. Eligible companies can be located anywhere in Belarus and enjoy the same rights and benefits as physical residents of the HTP.
Though salaries of IT specialists in Poland show strong year-to-year growth, they are still around 46% lower compared to German remuneration.
Tech titans such as Microsoft and Oracle have been running R&D centers in Poland for decades and Polish companies have more experience working directly for global brands.
As the most mature of the countries analysed, Poland boasts conditions for large R&D projects, and therefore, as you would expect, demands the highest prices.
Among software firms, Ukraine has gained the status of #1 outsourcing destination worldwide.
According to PayScale, programmers have the average salary $2,000 a month.
European countries prefer to work with Ukrainian companies because of the high quality of work, their willingness to improve their skills, and competitive rates.