2020 has already made significant adjustments to our lives. What are the changes in the world of information technology? We talked with one of the founders of Alex Staff Agency, Alexey Sukhorukov, about what is happening in the industry, what changes will remain with us, and when everything will return to normal.
What is already here
Pandemic and lockdown - a serious blow to the global economy. Absolutely for any country. And we understand that IT is inextricably linked with the real sector. On the one hand, the mass exodus online of various companies, even the smallest, is a huge amount of work to create new sites, applications, online stores, and delivery control systems. On the other hand, the financial resources of many companies were quickly exhausted, and on the whole, we saw a failure in the economy.
Many IT companies stopped hiring in March and April. Someone has not restored recruitment so far. The main reason is uncertainty, which is understandable. Now it is becoming more or less clear which market segments have failed, which ones have managed to rebuild.
Those software players whose customers have remained or even strengthened in the market are gradually returning to normal and are recruiting people for the future. These are, first of all, game devs, traders and delivery aggregators.
Other companies, whose clients are experiencing difficulties, are now at the stage of searching for new areas of application of force, and they are not up to hire. For example, these are those associated with tourism and sports.
Many IT companies stopped hiring in March and April. Someone has not restored recruitment so far. The main reason is uncertainty, which is understandable. Now it is becoming more or less clear which market segments have failed, which ones have managed to rebuild.
Those software players whose customers have remained or even strengthened in the market are gradually returning to normal and are recruiting people for the future. These are, first of all, game devs, traders and delivery aggregators.
Other companies, whose clients are experiencing difficulties, are now at the stage of searching for new areas of application of force, and they are not up to hire. For example, these are those associated with tourism and sports.
Our new everything - remote work
The tradition of remote work is actually quite old. A couple of decades ago, it was already implemented by such giants as IBM, Intel and Boeing. Often they needed stars to work - specialists with a rare stack and very high qualifications. And world-class specialists could be on different continents and not have a desire to move.
For smaller companies, remote work was unavailable for a long time, since not everyone could afford to lay broadband communication channels, and other technological difficulties also arose.
Now there is practically no technical problem. With the onset of the lockdown, all IT companies were forced to go to a remote format and faced organizational difficulties. First, work from home requires employees to be fairly self-organized. Secondly, if writing simple code from home is easy, then with complex architectural projects or developing technical solutions to business problems, the whole team needs to work together. Previously, this was decided by the office - but now this is not possible. The most difficult thing is to set up team interaction and high-quality project management.
When it became clear that employees had to sit at home for more than one week, companies were forced to adapt their business processes to a remote format in order to survive. Part of the employees who could not be reorganized had to leave. Criteria and methods for tracking performance and communications have been rewritten. Many companies have learned how to build their work outside the office accordingly. The savings became obvious - there are no expenses for rent and maintenance of the office, employees do not spend time on the road from and to their houses, do not get stuck in traffic jams.
A trend has formed: relatively large companies are reducing rental space. After removing the restrictive measures, they will leave some of the employees on the remote. Smaller companies that do not have global and sophisticated technical projects abandon the idea of returning offline.
It should be noted that some companies cannot work comfortably on a remote site. First of all, it is the fintech industry, as the risk of information leakage and hacking becomes higher.
For smaller companies, remote work was unavailable for a long time, since not everyone could afford to lay broadband communication channels, and other technological difficulties also arose.
Now there is practically no technical problem. With the onset of the lockdown, all IT companies were forced to go to a remote format and faced organizational difficulties. First, work from home requires employees to be fairly self-organized. Secondly, if writing simple code from home is easy, then with complex architectural projects or developing technical solutions to business problems, the whole team needs to work together. Previously, this was decided by the office - but now this is not possible. The most difficult thing is to set up team interaction and high-quality project management.
When it became clear that employees had to sit at home for more than one week, companies were forced to adapt their business processes to a remote format in order to survive. Part of the employees who could not be reorganized had to leave. Criteria and methods for tracking performance and communications have been rewritten. Many companies have learned how to build their work outside the office accordingly. The savings became obvious - there are no expenses for rent and maintenance of the office, employees do not spend time on the road from and to their houses, do not get stuck in traffic jams.
A trend has formed: relatively large companies are reducing rental space. After removing the restrictive measures, they will leave some of the employees on the remote. Smaller companies that do not have global and sophisticated technical projects abandon the idea of returning offline.
It should be noted that some companies cannot work comfortably on a remote site. First of all, it is the fintech industry, as the risk of information leakage and hacking becomes higher.
Relocation today
Immediately, we note that most IT companies will not go completely to a remote site. There will always be at least key offices. In a personal interaction, engineering and creative people, which include programmers, engineers and architects, always work better than sitting alone at home. It is convenient to write code alone, but when creating architectural solutions, teamwork has always proved its advantages.
Hiring and relocation will return to their usual volumes as quarantine measures are lifted. The shortage of highly qualified personnel will remain, this is especially noticeable in European countries. The level of technical education in Russia and the CIS countries is quite high, and this ensures the demand for our specialists in the world. This trend will remain for a long time.
Now countries are only opening their borders. The European Protocol implies different categories of countries in terms of their epidemiological danger, that is, it is already possible to enter from Slovenia to Italy, but not from Russia yet. However, it is worth noting that these protocols concern more tourist flow. When you move to work, you are dealing with a different type of visa. Now there is reason to believe that the entry opportunity for highly qualified specialists will be opened earlier.
Those who wanted to move can now consider work options and pass interviews. Even in a stable situation, the process from submitting a resume to a vacancy to relocating always took 3 to 6 months (depending on the country). Often, most of this time is the drafting of international documents. Perhaps now another 2-3 months will be added to this, but this does not cancel the opportunity itself.
At the same time, there will be an increase in the number of remote offers, for those who are not ready to move, but want to work for a foreign company. There will be interesting projects and new opportunities.
Hiring and relocation will return to their usual volumes as quarantine measures are lifted. The shortage of highly qualified personnel will remain, this is especially noticeable in European countries. The level of technical education in Russia and the CIS countries is quite high, and this ensures the demand for our specialists in the world. This trend will remain for a long time.
Now countries are only opening their borders. The European Protocol implies different categories of countries in terms of their epidemiological danger, that is, it is already possible to enter from Slovenia to Italy, but not from Russia yet. However, it is worth noting that these protocols concern more tourist flow. When you move to work, you are dealing with a different type of visa. Now there is reason to believe that the entry opportunity for highly qualified specialists will be opened earlier.
Those who wanted to move can now consider work options and pass interviews. Even in a stable situation, the process from submitting a resume to a vacancy to relocating always took 3 to 6 months (depending on the country). Often, most of this time is the drafting of international documents. Perhaps now another 2-3 months will be added to this, but this does not cancel the opportunity itself.
At the same time, there will be an increase in the number of remote offers, for those who are not ready to move, but want to work for a foreign company. There will be interesting projects and new opportunities.
Today we are already cautiously optimistic about the future relocation and employment of IT staff. Yes, the borders are still closed. But many companies are now ready to start work remotely. Indeed, someone was unable to adjust to circumstances and lost a job. But a lot of new proposals have appeared. Stay with us and always be up to date with the latest news on the market!
You can see already open vacancies here, we are also open for dialogue with outsourcing companies and new employers. You can always drop us an email at promo@alexstaff.agency!
You can see already open vacancies here, we are also open for dialogue with outsourcing companies and new employers. You can always drop us an email at promo@alexstaff.agency!
