Tag Archives: Ukraine

The stories of our colleagues: a chance to escape the war

The war for me started in Egypt, on vacation, with my family. But pain, fear for loved ones, and what is happening cannot be expressed in words. We spent a week in a hotel and flew to Germany because we could not return home. Like most refugees, they arrived without warm clothes, without money, and only passports from documents.

When leaving on vacation, no one thinks that he will not return home in the nearest future …

Germany welcomes the Ukrainians very warmly and experiences our grief as their own. However, it is still hard to be in a foreign country, knowing that EVERYTHING is left at home: soul, heart, home life, and parents continue to be in Kharkiv under constant shelling and do not want to go anywhere.

Now we are learning to live in a new way with a huge emptiness inside and faith in only one thing, that everyone will be alive and well, and this terrible dream for all of Ukraine will soon end.

– Katia

 

***

 

The first couple of days, after the outbreak of hostilities, life practically did not change. Except for the sounds of shots coming from behind the district and queues in stores. People tried to buy everything they needed to the maximum.

Considering that recently I worked remotely, the work process proceeded in the usual rhythm. Only the noise in the background became different. The neighbor’s drill was replaced by volleys of hail and artillery

It didn’t last very long… Until they began to get closer and closer to residential areas and aviation appeared. When war comes to your house, you don’t know how to act and where to run. You start looking at options…

We spent one day in the basement. Oppressive atmosphere… Someone is trying to captivate children with games and drawing, someone is endlessly scrolling through news feeds, and someone is running in a panic around the space, only adding to the anxiety. Stress affects everyone differently.

I decided for myself that it was easier to equip a couch in the corridor than endlessly run into the basement. On the 4th day, it was no longer possible to work. Too frequent and close shelling, electricity is constantly cut down, mobile communications are intermittent…

The first week felt like an eternity. After several nights under airstrikes, it was decided to leave for a safer place. Because some have already managed to reach the western regions of Ukraine. At that time, there were no big problems with finding housing.

From Kharkiv, we left towards the Dnipro. The traffic jam at the exit from the city took us 4 hours. In total, on the first day of the journey, we managed to get to the city of Alexandria. After the first quiet night in a week, we moved towards Khmelnytskyi.

It took us about 32 hours to get to Khmelnytskyi, of which 2 hours we spent on a short sleep along the road, in a makeshift parking lot near the motel. The rest of the time we drove and stood in endless traffic jams.

I would like to note the drivers who believed that they needed to get to their destination more than others – bypassing columns of standing cars with children, the disabled, and simply exhausted people in the oncoming lane, some of whom have nowhere to return.

Upon arrival in Khmelnytskyi, many of the housing options waiting for us were already occupied. It was decided not to go further west and find accommodation locally. On the first day, we were miraculously able to find a motel room near the road for 2 nights. The first day we slept off, the second we spent in search of housing in the place or somewhere else. At that time, everything in the city was already occupied, or we were unlucky. Of all the proposed options, the best solution was – a return to Alexandria.

So we did it. The road back took us much less time, and by the evening we were already there. But before settling into the housing that was waiting for us, we had to live for several days in a volunteer apartment.

As a result, after all the moves, which took about a week, I was able to start a normal workflow. Not with the best Internet, not in the conditions that we are all used to, but the workflow is going on.

And seeing that a huge number of businesses across the country are closed, many people are left without means of subsistence, and someone even finds himself in a hopeless situation, having lost everything … You understand that at least a small contribution in the form of paying taxes, or helping individual people who find themselves in a difficult situation, you can somehow help.

Yes, we will not save the economy individually… We will not return home or loved ones to people… But if everyone who now has a small opportunity to help does this, then we will be able to overcome all difficulties.

Now is the time when everyone should do the maximum in their place, to the extent possible. Otherwise, why all these sacrifices?

– Sergey

 

***

 

Our friend lived in Tsyrkuny and was at home at the beginning of the war. Tsyrkuny is a village at the entrance to Kharkiv from the Belgorod side (RF). It was occupied immediately – on February 24th.

Our friend and his family lived in a private house. In the neighborhood, they had a new house, still unfurnished. Doctors settled there a month ago.

Doctors were kicked out of the house on the first day and the orcs (Russian soldiers) settled.

Practically from the first day, they began to bomb Kharkiv and nearby territories every day. My friend tried to enter the territory of Ukraine, but the Russian army did not let them in.

At some point, they could not withstand the bombing and together with their family – wife, son, and 92-year-old father-in-law – went to the Russian border together with the invader’s echelon.

“I had to leave the car, house, and dog to the neighbors. The dog is big, it was simply not possible to take it with me.” – he said.

Now the Tsyrkuny is very destroyed. Although our friend, a former military man who fought in Afghanistan, says that two wars for life are too much. In Ukraine, there were parents, an adult daughter with a child. The second child, who was taken with them, is 13 years old.

Nobody wants to go to Russia, but there is no choice.

We got to know that my friend and his family managed to escape. After interrogations in the Russian Federation, they left Russia for Lithuania and returned to Ukraine.

– Unknown

——————————–

|

How to make Christmas & New Year greetings continuous and touching

Our team of those crazy people who want to change the world for the better. There is an understanding of what specific things can be done for the benefit of nature and the planet in the future. For us, this is a question of self-realization. We do not want to live by the common principle of the rat race. Therefore, this year the whole team took a new initiative for ourselves – not to make standard gifts for Christmas and New Year for our partners and friends.

We will not give them a card, a cute souvenir wrapped in a beautiful gift paper, we will not give them a notebook or diary, we will not give them sweets this year.

And we have good reasons for this.

Have you ever wondered how much money is usually spent on corporate gifts? For instance in your country?  In Ukraine, this is $ 50,000,000 per year. Impressive?! For us, yes.

Bearing in mind how nature is threatened nowadays we decided to renew at least a little part of the greenery and planted dozens of trees in a schoolyard in Kharkiv this autumn. Look here how it was. Without our proudest partners, this would not be possible and they are an inseparable participant in this initiative.

Thank you for being with us and making the world a better place for living!

|

How The Visit To The Remote Team Can Help Our Clients

In today’s world – employment, speed, and communications – it is less and less possible to lure a client into an office. Nevertheless, meeting with an important client in your office is a very useful event that helps to establish a trusting relationship.

Exactly a year ago, on November 8, 2018, Paul from Australia came to our office together with his wife. He was very pleased with his visit, despite the long journey and the time difference. It helped us to better feel his pains and fears. Moving forward on difficult issues. 

A customer visit is a pleasant and vibrant event for most IT companies. We really would like to share how the visit to the remote team can help our clients. 

  • Yes, we are real! We always offer the client to come to visit us, look at the office and personally get to know the team. This works well to increase confidence, even if the client never gathers for a meeting – you do not hide, do not pretend to be invisible and are as open as possible.
  • We have a great professional team! Introduce a few people from the team to the client and explain that no one will be lost and that he can contact different people in case of an emergency.
  • You can easily evaluate the size of the company. There are a lot of examples when it is written on popular web resources that “we are US-based company”, but it turns out to be a company in the basement with two people.
  • Technical equipment. The office of the company is fully equipped with modern technics and software. There is a complete pool of devices for testing projects.
  • A personal meeting with the team allows you to convey the value of the project that the client feels. The team gets the right attitude and is motivated to achieve success and good progress in work.

We are always glad to see clients in our office or set up an in-person meeting whatever it could be. A motivated team that clearly understands the client’s values is the key to the project’s success and more contribution to the final result.

|

Itera Research Reflects: Ukrainian Specialist Is A Bestseller On The Outsourcing Market. Why?

Ukraine – the unannounced Mecca of outsourcing. Moreover, in areas requiring high qualifications: software development, support of IT projects, etc. The outsourcing market is growing at 20% at an annual rate, and this growth is expected to only increase.

Unique offer from Ukrainian outsourcers

Why, despite the serious competition and high activity of Asian companies, a good share of this pie goes to the specialists from Ukraine?

The main reasons:

  • excellent technical education of  IT specialists
  • the ability to make independent interim decisions
  • willingness to solve complex problems
  • minor cultural differences between our specialists and foreign customers.

The puzzles of the Ukrainian cultural code, are very close to Western and Central Europe and even to North Americans. Ukrainians are convenient performers for customers from different parts of Europe precisely they embody the golden mean of Europeans themselves.

The arithmetic mean of cultural Europe

Let’s take distant from each other, as it seems, Swiss and Italians (mentally, not geographically). Different temperaments, different ideas about punctuality, different attitudes to the state power, to the law, different religious degrees, etc. All these differences fall into the range of acceptablу for the average Ukrainian developer fluctuations.

  • We are happy to express openly our emotions. However, we know very well how to hide them on occasion.
  • We know how to be accurate, like a Swiss watch. However, we can talk about reasonable flexibility over time (by the way, this flexibility allows us to work towards reducing the deadline if the project deadlines were cut unexpectedly).
  • With all our hearts we want to trust the state, authorities, and superiors. However, watching the next pirouettes of the “superior”, we are ready to reduce their value in our lives.

Well and further on the list. All this does not say anything about our unprincipled – it is natural flexibility, which allowed us to survive in different conditions for centuries. That is why we can quite organically be both introverts and extroverts, intellectuals and “simple-minded”, etc.

Let us add the common ground for all Europeans: Christianity as a fundamental religion, emerging from Roman law and inherited from the ancient Greeks culture and statehood.

  • Finally, as for most Europeans, English is not native to us. Which to some extent facilitates communication, limiting it to accessible vocabulary.

Yes but no, but yes

Does this make the Ukrainian an ideal outsourcer for a European client? Here we again recall the cultural proximity of our compatriot and client. After all, it is common for us to look (unlike the valiant dumping) not at the collective image, but the individual qualities of the performer. A specific Ukrainian performer may disappear from the radar, ignore deadlines and point-blank not understand the terms of reference. But!

If we talk about the average temperature in a hospital, Ukrainians are a good choice with their desire to plunge deeply into the task, a good profile education, understandable English and similar personal values ​​(even a sense of humor), we think.

|

5 Things You Will Never Hear About Outsourcing to Ukraine

The talents of Ukrainian software developers are well-known worldwide. Major companies such as Samsung Electronics, NetCracker, Wargaming, Magento, Siemens and SysIQ outsource software development to companies based in Ukraine, open offices in Ukraine and even set up their R&D centers there. Ukrainian developers are professional, responsive, innovative and dedicated. But this article will shed some light on another side of Ukrainians that you are unlikely to know or ever hear about.

 Ukrainians will not always agree with you.

Yes, we are stubborn. When we see that a feature you want to add to the scope could damage the project, we will not say, “Ok, you’re the boss.” We will argue and do our best to explain and prove our reasons.

 We are such a “pain in the ass.”

We ask plenty of questions before the project starts. We specify all the use cases and user flows. It may appear that we are not professional, but in fact we are just detail oriented.

 Ukrainians can refuse you.

We are realists and quite consciously so. If you’re looking to create EBay or Facebook in a week from scratch, we will refuse you. We are not afraid of challenges, but likewise we are not wizards and we will give you a sober assessment of the situation.

 We can be indelicate and ask uncomfortable questions.

We will ask you about your business model and planned revenue streams. This particular information helps us to see the big picture to suggest ideas for new applications that can improve operations. We believe developers with a business focus are more efficient and can be more useful.

 Ukrainians are meticulous.

Instead of spending hours blindly making changes, Ukrainian programmers prefer to carefully investigate the code and research possible issues until an answer is found.

 

Sincerely,

Itera Research team

|