The problem of hiring professional developers is faced by both small recently launched startups and large international corporations. It seems that there is nothing complicated in the recruiting process, but many years of practice have proved that the selection of a decent team requires significant effort and knowledge of the specifics of different labor markets. With all the richness of choice, recruiters are increasingly turning their eyes towards IT professionals from Eastern Europe. The demand for these specialists has been steadily growing for over 10 years, and there are a number of reasons for this. In this article, we will take a close look at the best countries in Eastern Europe to outsource software development to.

How can one understand that it is worth outsourcing the task and looking for developers on the side and not trying to solve the issue in-house? There are three main reasons for that:

There is hardly anything more important to the prosperity of any company than choosing a reliable partner to help with the search for specialists. Sooner or later, Western entrepreneurs consider IT outsourcing to Eastern Europe to get a chance to access highly skilled employees, reduce production costs and find new opportunities for growth. We are used to the fact that China and India occupy the leading positions in the IT outsourcing market. However, international companies are increasingly choosing to work with developers from Ukraine, Poland, Russia, and Belarus. The most obvious advantage of this approach is the decent level of special education of such specialists. Companies are opting for Eastern Europe to search for outsource developers for various reasons. For some businesses, this is an opportunity to save their budget. For others — a desire to save the work time of key employees working on the staff. Outsourcing IT experts allows you to find a specialist from any field of development relatively quickly. They will come to your team, do the job and move on to the next project, while you will get an excellent result without unnecessary problems. According to the surveys of Western managers and CEOs, there are three main reasons why their companies decided to outsource developers to Eastern Europe.

Despite the obvious benefits of this type of cooperation, outsourcing also has certain unpleasant aspects. So, due to the isolation from your company’s life and the context of the project, performers often underestimate the complexity of the work or overestimate their own abilities. Because of this, they can miss the deadline for the completed work.

Today, there are more than 5,000 companies that specialize in software outsourcing in Eastern Europe. Ukraine and Poland have the largest number of large and medium-sized development firms, including outsourcing. The top 5 countries also include Belarus, Czech Republic and Romania. Eastern Europe certainly has some of the best countries to outsource software development to due to the fact that the IT sector here is thriving and the high level of adoption of digital technologies in everyday life.

The main things that customers pay attention to when choosing a country to outsource IT specialists to are prices, the level of development of the IT sector, access to quality education and, importantly, the ability to communicate in the preferred language. By default, in the IT industry, communication in international teams is conducted in English. So, what Eastern European countries should you pay attention to when looking for remote specialists for your project? 1. UKRAINE Specialization: Developers from this country often work in blockchain and cryptocurrency projects, big data and mobile development. The most common languages ​are C++, Java, Ruby, and PHP. Pros: Insignificant language barrier — almost 80% of specialists employed in IT speak English — and affordable prices. 2. POLAND Specialization: Polish developers prefer to work in PHP, Python, and Ruby. Pros: A high level of IT education makes Polish specialists highly valuable in the international labor market. 3. BELARUS Specialization: Belarusian specialists confidently use Java, PHP, and C++. Pros: Experts from the “Eastern European Silicon Valley” are among the top 10 strongest developers in the world. They provide a high level of performing skills at a relatively low cost of services. 4. THE CZECH REPUBLIC Specialization: Czech developers are known for their high level of knowledge of Java, JavaScript, and PHP. Pros: Education and the IT sector, respectively, are developing at a rapid pace thanks to investments from such giants as Google, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and Skype. 5. RUSSIA Specialization: Russian developers successfully apply PHP, Javascript, and Python. Pros: A considerable level of professionalism and cost-effective pricing.

The IT outsourcing market in Russia has been growing steadily over the past few years. The profits of companies providing remote developer services are in the hundreds of millions of dollars (as of 2020). Among their clients are both major national companies and high-profile international projects. Among the advantages of outsourcing developers to Russia, customers specifically highlight:

Suppose you have a concept of your future project and you know the needs of your clients. You are ready to get started. It only remains to choose the performers. What to look for when recruiting outsource developers?

Find out how the developer plans to work on your project, which tools they will choose and why. A qualified specialist can always clearly answer these questions and justify the choice. If you need a stack of specific technologies, ask about the relevant experience. It may happen that further negotiations with such a developer don’t make sense. To prevent these situations, we at Exceed Team make sure our developers meet the highest standards and own a stack of relevant and in-demand technologies.

Experienced developers are ready to tell you about the cases they worked on. Check if they've ever worked on a project similar to yours. See our completed works here.

The clients’ opinions can tell a lot about specialists and highlight their strong and weak points. However, you should not rely on them 100% — make a decision based on the specifics of your particular project.

After studying the skills and reviews, talk to a specialist — make a call or a video meeting. This will allow you to understand how comfortable your communication will be while working on a project. We always conduct a meeting of a future development team with the customer.

It’s a tricky step, but ask the developer to share their opinion about your project after your first acquaintance and onboarding. A fresh look of a new specialist will help you identify weak points and find potential for improvements.

After you have contacted us, our further work will consist of several stages, where each step is debugged to the smallest detail. Stages of creating a team for your project:

1. Thorough analysis of your requirements. 2. Selection of the most suitable developers. Using our own system for selecting candidates, we keep only the best and conduct interviews with them. If you have special requirements, we will take them into account. 3. Onboarding. We hold an online meeting with the developers. Together with the team, you discuss the future project, your work standards and workflows to ensure the selected specialists understand your needs. 4. Trial period. The test period for new developers will allow you to understand if a particular specialist is right for you. If not, we will quickly find a replacement. 5. We continue to work on the project until its completion. When the trial period is over, the developers get to work in full force. You receive direct reports from team members and have full control over the process. Exceed Team's goal is productive and long-term cooperation with each customer. For more than 6 years of work in this field, we have proven the effectiveness of such a personalized approach to each customer. We work with companies from the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Australia, and Brazil. Check our portfolio and client reviews on Good Firms or Clutch. If you are ready to discuss your project with us, fill out the form on our website, indicating all the important details, and our managers will contact you as soon as we study the information.