Vakoms – a software development company with R&D centers in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk – opens a new office in one of the new business centers of Wroclaw. The official opening took place in October.
“We’ve been planning to open an office abroad for some time already and the war just accelerated the implementation of the idea. Another reason is that one of our long-term clients with whom we have partnered for 6 years already, wanted to start a new project but was afraid to kick it off in Ukraine. We’ve got a suggestion to open a subsidiary abroad, which was a deciding factor in implementing the long-standing plan. We investigated several locations and chose Poland,” Andriy Shevchyk, managing partner and CTO at Vakoms.
Why Poland? The company founders mentioned a number of reasons:
- Proximity to Ukraine gives an additional advantage now when flights are not available, as a journey to Poland by road transport doesn’t take too long
- Lower language barrier: a lot of people at Vakoms speak Polish
- The salary policy is pretty much the same as in Ukraine, yet with some peculiarities
- A similar mindset helps understand each other and reach an agreement
- Poland’s uncompromising support of Ukraine
There were several Polish cities to consider. Wroclaw won as it offered different workplace options and a well-developed urban infrastructure. What’s more, people there are open to new business opportunities as it’s one of the directions, actively supported by the local authorities. That’s why it was relatively easy to organize everything.
“Poland, like the rest of the European countries, is pretty bureaucratic. It’s not that easy to start a business there, you have to deal with a lot of paperwork and red tape. In spite of this, all managers were open and willing to help us so it turned out to be a favorable environment for us,” says Pavlo Pelekh, managing partner and CEO at Vakoms.
So far, Vakoms rents a flex office. It’s a convenient and practical solution as there’s no need to worry about getting all the equipment necessary for comfortable work. The team will work there two days a week and during the client’s visits to the office, the rest of the time remote work is allowed. Currently, the company hires new employees in the new office.
New teammates include Poles and Ukrainians residing in Poland. Java developer vacancies are among the hottest. There’s a plan to gather a team of 15 employees for the first project and later increase the staff to 50-100 employees. Check out the list of vacancies. The company owners plan to open offices in other countries as well.