Ukrainian tech companies hope for the best, plan for worst https://www.fastcompany.com/90725211/ukraine-tech-companies 02-25-22
The country is home to a surprising number of known-name tech companies, as well as contract programming talent that works for companies around the world.
As other Ukraine company executives have taken pains to point out, Zhadanov says his company had contingency plans and that its infrastructure and customer data are kept on servers based in the U.S. and Europe, out of harm’s way.
“Since we are an international company with employees in 11 countries, the business won’t suffer,” he says. “We are now taking measures to ensure the personal safety of our employees who are in Odessa.”
Some tech leaders in the Ukraine feel a sense of remorse that while technology keeps moving into the future, geopolitics sometimes seem locked in a Cold War past.
Some large U.S. tech companies, such as Microsoft and Salesforce’s Slack, have outsourced major projects to teams of contractors in Ukraine. Others have opened offices in the country to access talent. Israeli gaming company Plarium, for example, has development staff in Kharkiv, near the Russian border in eastern Ukraine.
Now, many of these companies have plans in place to get their workers out of harm’s way if the situation in Ukraine worsens.