We found out how many IT juniors SoftServe, EPAM, Ciklum, GlobalLogic and others hired in 2024. And also - where is the best place to look for a job for junior in 2025. Spoiler: hundreds of vacancies announced

Juniors and outsourcing

Service companies are often called talent pools. After all, it is here that many IT specialists usually start their journey in the industry. This is facilitated by internal training programs and cooperation with higher education institutions. So who leads in the number of hired beginners?

According to the latest data as of early December, 327 Trainee and Junior level specialists joined SoftServe in 2024, Oleksandra Tolokh, Senior Talent Operations Manager at SoftServe, told dev.ua. 70% of them, she said, came to the company through the IT Academy’s educational solutions or joint educational programs with universities. «This is twice as many as last year. Currently, we have such programs with seven universities in Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro, and dozens of other initiatives in partnership with 65 different universities,» Oleksandra details. SoftServe hired the most junior specialists this year in the areas of QA, DevOps, WebUI, .NET, and Java. «Most vacancies for this level are in high demand among candidates, but the most responses were for DevOps and QA,» Tolokh noted.

According to Denys Hrynyov, head of educational programs at EPAM Ukraine, regarding the transfer of juniors, as of early December, more than 480 juniors had begun cooperation with the company through training at EPAM Campus. «Since the programs are still ongoing, we expect this number to increase by the end of 2024. In 2023, there were 211 such transfers to projects,» he says.

According to Denis, EPAM accepts all candidates who meet the entrance requirements, without restrictions on the level of education. «In Ukraine, we have partnership agreements with about 50 universities, so often their students and graduates later join EPAM Campus educational programs,» the specialist said. Today, adds Hrynyov, the most in-demand specialists are Data, Quality Engineering, Development, Cloud, Business Analysis, and Design.

GlobalLogic has hired 201 new employees since the beginning of 2014, the company told dev.ua. The most popular IT positions for hire are DevOps, Python, and QA.

Kateryna Kokhanova, Fulfillment Manager at Ciklum, told dev.ua that in 2024 the company hired 17 junior specialists, which is 26% less than in 2023. «However, last year most of the newcomers were involved in technical support positions, while the share of developers was smaller. However, this year the situation has changed, and we have observed an increase in the number of juniors in development, in particular in the areas of .NET, Python and Flutter, as well as Delivery Management,» she said. According to the specialist, Ciklum hired young specialists from leading technical universities, in particular Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Lviv Polytechnic and National University.

Оlena Zazhimakina, CS Recruitment General Manager at ZONE3000, said that during the year the company started cooperation with 168 junior specialists (external recruitment). «This is almost half as much as last year and is due to the fact that in 2024 we adhered to the planned recruitment and closed mainly critical positions (Moddle+, Senior, Tech Expert level),» she explains. In external recruitment, positions for junior specialists, according to Victoria, are mainly Customer Support, Operations, Recruiting, HR.

«We are closing technical junior positions thanks to the Internal Mobility program. This year, thanks to internal transfers, we closed 16 positions in the product and technology areas. Candidates usually move to these departments from Customer Support. This is possible thanks to open and transparent opportunities within the company, support for professional development by management, and opportunities for training. Examples of such positions: Project Coordinator, Product Owner Associate, Product Coordinator, Vendor Management Specialist, Product & Marketing Operations Manager, Business Development Operations Specialist, QA Engineer, TechOps Shift Specialist​, TechOps Engineer, Cloud Site Reliability Engineer, SRE Monitoring Assistant,» explains Victoria in a comment to dev.ua.

The main areas in which Master of Code Global is in demand for entry-level specialists are Information Security and Data Science. This year, the company has recruited one junior specialist, while last year there were two such specialists.

How is the product doing?

Food companies often choose to train their own staff. However, given the size of the companies, the hiring figures for junior here are much more modest.

«We are more in favor of internships, that is, to train for yourself and keep in the company. Since 2023, we have had 6 interns, 5 of whom have already become middle specialists. In 2024, we had one internship and we invited only veterans without experience. Thus, we hired 4 more specialists who now work at the level of junior specialists. If we talk about hiring junior specialists without internships, then our „speed“ is 3 specialists per year,» Tatyana Bohdan, HR Business Partner of RozetkaPay, told dev.ua.

According to her, a fintech product is quite complex and specific, so in the engineering department, the company takes a rather strict approach to junior specialists. «The reason is that the price of a mistake is too high. When a specialist takes on the role of an intern, we see the potential, train them for us (as our interns say, it’s like training for which you get paid) and then we continue cooperation,» Bohdan noted.

If we talk about graduates of courses and universities, then RozetkaPay does not focus on diplomas, because knowledge can be obtained in different ways. «What is more important is the desire to learn (the mentor does not always lead by the hand), interest in the stack, and compliance with our values,» Bohdan noted.

Olena Oleksienko, Chief of People Team EVO (Prom, Bigl, Kabanchik, Shafa), cannot boast of mass hiring of beginners either. «This year we hired five junior-level specialists: three Python developers and 2 testers. Last year we hired 9 specialists of this level,» she told dev.ua. As for higher education institutions, the company receives the most specialists from KPI.

Sofia Oleksiuk, HR Generalist Futurra Group, reported that during 2024, the company hired approximately 15-20 juniors, which is 10 more people than in 2023), both in technical and non-technical positions.

«Most often, graduates of Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Shevchenko Kyiv National University, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Kyiv National University of Economics join us, mainly from the faculties of mathematics, cybernetics, marketing or computer technologies. Most juniors come to marketing and product roles, where we value an analytical mindset. So this range of universities seems quite natural,» she says. Currently, the greatest demand, according to Sofia, is for marketers (performance marketing), analysts, marketing designers and front-end developers. «We are ready to take juniors with minimal experience for these positions and quickly train them in the process of performing real tasks (and under real challenges),» she noted.

Vladislava Pertsatiy, People Operations Manager at Railsware, also talks about productive internship programs for beginners. «Previously, in our case, the model of cooperation with entry-level specialists in the Marketing Intern position worked perfectly. After successfully completing the internship, interns could receive (and often did) an offer for a Junior role in our marketing team. In this scenario, more than one strong marketer grew up at Railsware. This year, we expanded this practice to other „initial“ roles, in particular, BI Intern, Product Management Intern, Talent Sourcer, Junior Python Engineer, Customer Support Intern. However, for us, an internship does not mean lowering the bar — even for these positions, we carefully selected the best specialists on the market, whose attitude to work and values ​​resonated with ours,» he says.

Railsware doesn’t look at diplomas or university names. What matters is a common «vibe» and the ability to constantly learn and perform tasks at a high level. «Regarding technical stacks, the demand depends on the specifics of the project — but we take into account everything related to the development of our products. That’s why both students and more mature switchers successfully completed the «internship», — says Vladyslavа.

She admits: «If we manage to find an HR Operations Intern by the end of the year, we will exceed the juniors 2023 figure by 25% — and set our own record.»

Will there be jobs for juniors in 2025?

Where should beginners look for work next year? The answer is not easy, however, some employers have grand plans for young people.

At SoftServe, the company is not currently setting any quantitative goals for its plans for 2025. «This year, the hiring of junior has increased somewhat, and we hope that this trend will continue next year — so the forecast is optimistic, but quite restrained,» noted Oleksandra Tolokh.

Kateryna Kokhanova from Ciklum says that in 2025, she expects the share of vacancies for technical support specialists to remain stable, and hopes for an increase in the number of junior vacancies in development. «This is facilitated by the interest from clients who are already considering the possibility of attracting beginners to their teams. For our part, we are also actively working to demonstrate to clients the benefits of hiring not only experienced specialists, but also juniors to create balanced teams that allow for increased flexibility and the growth of specialists within the company,» she noted.

Meanwhile, plans for hiring juniors for next year at ZONE3000 are 200-500 specialists/ «The exact figure will depend on the current state of business and the economic situation in the country,» Zazhimakina noted. And EPAM’s plans for 2025 are to train about 800 juniors and find them real projects.

In 2025, Master of Code Global plans to expand the team further, however, analyzing the dynamics of business requests, the company’s specialists predict that the main demand is focused on specialists of the middle level and above. «Therefore, the emphasis in hiring will probably be on more experienced professionals,» Nataliya Yerisova, Head of Global Recruitment at Master of Code Global, told dev.ua.

As for technical roles, here MOCG gives preference to candidates with higher technical education. «However, when selecting candidates, we are not limited to certain educational institutions. We have a flexible approach to selecting candidates, paying special attention not only to their practical skills, but also to their personal qualities, compliance with the company’s culture and the requirements of the vacancy,» the Cherkasy company emphasizes.

Currently, all key positions in the EVO team are filled. «Therefore, we do not expect a significant increase in technical vacancies in 2025. We will focus on developing existing employees and improving their qualifications,» said Olena Oleksienko.

Regarding plans for 2025, Tetyana Bohdan from RozetkaPay notes the following: «2024 was an active year for us in hiring IT specialists. We expanded the team by more than 40 specialists, but we do not plan such an expansion in 2025. However, there will definitely be an internship.»

Meanwhile, Railsware has ambitious plans for the coming year. «We will continue to look for ‘junior specialists’ who are looking for professional growth, have a product mindset, and are ready to join the development of our products and grow with us,» Vladyslav Pertsatiy tells dev.ua.

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