UPD. A developer who has been waiting for a salary for almost a year said that her ex-employer owes her $11,000. The company's co-founder promises to pay "as the funds arrive." Is there a chance to collect the debt?

What happened

«Is this post desperation? Probably yes. Will I stop? Probably no,» Flutter developer Erika Gyendyeshy ends her post. She publicly stated that NearCoast owes her almost half a million hryvnias — $11,000 in salary arrears.

Developer version

It all started as usual: October 2023, the salary had not arrived. The management explained that customers were delaying payments, banks were slowing down transfers, and projects had decreased. Erika and her colleagues were understanding. We’ll bear with it.

They waited until August 2024. Part of the team left on their own, part was fired. Erica moved to another company, but continued to maintain contact with the manager — she didn’t pressure him, she just asked him to repay the debt gradually when he had the opportunity. She did receive some of the money — $4,680. Another $11,000, she said, was left hanging in the air.

Since March 2026, the girl says, NearCoast founder Petro Voloshchuk has stopped responding at all.

Then Erica went public with this. In the first post — without names, with a request to get in touch by May 10. In response, she received not a dialogue, but a master class on shifting responsibility. Voloshchuk, the developer says, suddenly «remembered» that as a specialist she was not making enough to meet her salary. And he remembered the flooded laptop — because of which its value allegedly dropped to $150. «Petro, it was my own MacBook,» Erica replied.

In the second post, she named the names. Petro Voloshchuk is the founder of NearCoast, a former employee of THINKMOBILES, a resident of the UA Tech Network, a speaker at panel discussions on scaling IT businesses. His wife, Natalia Yartsysh, is a former Lead Account Manager at NearCoast, currently working at Redwerk and LMS. Alexander Goldberg is a freelance representative of the company in the USA.

A separate detail: Erica still receives letters from Apple Developer about successful updates and publications of NearCoast applications. The company is active. It just doesn’t settle accounts with specialists.

Another victim, Erica assures, is developer Andriy Samykov, who left NearCoast about a year ago with a large debt. Now, according to her, he is in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Over the past year, he has not received any payments.

Erica, according to her, offered to negotiate a partial repayment in early March — at least $300 per month. The girl was ready to discuss the amounts. Voloshchuk did not respond to this message. After the public post, he wrote: «I have no answer for when and in parts too.»

«The goal is to bide my time until I give up,» Erica concludes. However, the post says she has no plans to stop.

Employer version

The founder of NearCoast gave dev.ua a detailed comment. According to him, Erica came on a recommendation as an experienced Flutter developer, but on the first project it turned out that she had no real experience with Flutter — only a course. He continued the cooperation anyway, the project was closed with a delay, but the client never returned. Later, he hired her as the first programmer.

Before the full-scale invasion, things were going well — salaries were paid and raised on request. Then, in the first months of the war, the company lost four projects, and earnings fell to almost zero. One client refused to pay a large debt. Voloshchuk says that he first spent the company’s reserve funds, then his personal ones — and in parallel, for almost a year, he paid the salary of an employee who had joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

When Eric and part of the team offered to reduce his salary by 50% and continue, he refused, considering it unfair. There was hope for a large client with a signed contract, who was waiting for investment and promised «just in time.» They didn’t wait.

He says this about ending contact: Erica started calling not only him, but also his wife every day. «The daily extortions are killing me,» he explains his decision to break off contact, while admitting that it probably shouldn’t have been.

He admits the debt. He says he will pay it off — as agreed: when a real opportunity arises. «If I physically don’t have the money, then I can’t draw it anywhere.» And he asks one thing: not to drag his wife and other people who are not involved into a public conflict.

An important nuance

As the developer told dev.ua, she worked for the company unofficially — without formalities. In her own words, she doesn’t know whether it makes sense to pursue the matter legally. This means that even if the debt is real, there may be no legal tools to collect it.

Eddy told dev.ua that it had settled with the dismissed employees. However, more than a year had passed between the complaints and the settlement.

On the topic

Eddy told dev.ua that it had settled with the dismissed employees. However, more than a year had passed between the complaints and the settlement.

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