Every year, the demand for new employees increases as the IT industry continues to grow and evolve in Poland with the country gaining popularity for being one of the top IT outsourcing destinations in Europe. Although the IT scene is dominated by large international companies, there are hundreds of small to medium sized IT companies in Krakow. Growth of tech startups in Krakow has also contributed to the dynamic IT job market in the city.
#OMGKRK asked Kamil Głowacki, co-founder of dotLinkers (an IT recruitment agency), a few questions about how the IT market is changing in Kraków. With 50 clients in Kraków, dotLinkers hired around 400 employees in 4 years of activity on the market. They are specialized in hiring from regular software engineers up to CEOs (Chief Executive Officer) and CIOs (Chief Information Officer). About 80% of their hires are regular and senior software developers and only a few junior software developers, since it is not the target hire for their companies.
Below is an excerpt of the interview.
What’s the size of IT Market in Krakow?
KG: “In our database, we have over 5,000 candidates, most of them from Kraków. The pool of software developers is much much higher”
We have many tech universities, engineer universities, and private coding schools producing ever year a couple thousand students
The estimated number of software developers and people in the IT industry is over 60,000 in Kraków.
The IT Industry is progressively creating and experiencing consistent changes. However, there is no sign that this pattern will change any time soon. Both recruiters and candidates will constantly have to improve skills, learn how to utilize new tools and find innovative solutions to progress with the IT market.
What is the driving factor for candidates?
KG: There are two different approaches:
- Junior and regular candidates between 20-27 years old – are really focused on the money and the salary. Mostly spend 1 or 2 years and will move to either the competition or another company.
- More senior level candidates – are focusing more on the project itself and the impact they could have on the project. They are more loyal to the company because they see the result of their work and can see the project they have been working on changing over the years
The IT Market in Kraków is getting really close to what we can observe in Silicon Valley where the average period people stay in a company is below 2 years, which was not the case a couple years ago.
The salaries have also increased drastically, around 40% over the past 5 years, which in his opinion, good from an agency perspective but not for the Polish IT market. Candidates used to be competitive with really high skills, and the skills are still there, but people are no longer competitive when comparing it to Ukraine, Belarus, or Bulgaria.
How do you think the job market in Krakow has changed within the past 5-10 years?
KG: The market has definitely changed over the past 5 years or 10 years, especially when it comes to candidates. They became really demanding when it comes to job offers. They are mainly looking at salaries first, which is the main difference. Previously, candidates would focus on the project itself. The first thing that most candidates are asking is how much they will be earning or mentioning on their profiles that they won’t be earning less than a certain amount. Candidates are also harder to control because of having many recruitment processes and offers at the same time. It is more difficult to keep the person involved in the process and to stay motivated by the potential job opportunity.
A Series On Trends In Krakow’s I.T. Market
This article is written by OMGKRK’s digital marketing intern, Alia Sallam, based on Kamil Glawacki’s interview with Kriti Spinoff, marketing and communications manager at OMGKRK.
This is a part of the series of articles on Krakow’s IT job market. Other articles in the series will include the following:
- What will be the most in-demand job skills in Krakow in 2020?
- What will be the highest paying roles in Krakow’s job market in 2020?
- Foreigners in Krakow’s IT job market
- Work-from-home jobs. How many Krakow companies encourage that?
- Are Krakow IT employers consciously trying to recruit female candidates?
