Ігор Вишневський Історії 26 June 2025, 09:00

"The name is a bit "Freudian", but no one put any lustful meanings into it. We are perceived as decent women who develop the IT sphere." How the women's business Sisi.Dev works and who are their clients

Over the past few decades, Ukrainian women have proven that their place and role in the domestic IT sector are beyond doubt. If we take the statistics from February 2024 to February 2025, then among new IT entrepreneurs, women generally made up 48%, almost embodying the same gender equality in practice. But is there a place in Ukrainian IT for purely female projects, which, moreover, declare themselves on the market with a slight touch of shocking? The girls from Sisi.Dev prove that yes.

We spoke with Founder and Project Manager Yulia Mazhaeva, Co-founder and Head of UI/UX design Khrystyna Moroz, and Business Development Manager and Marketing specialist Alena Kukhtina to understand what services Sisi.Dev provides, what domains they work with, and what it’s like to run a women’s business during a full-scale war. In a conversation with dev.ua, they also told us how it all started, what business development plans they have, and how customers are reacting to their somewhat provocative «sign.»

From «fighters» to Sisi.Dev

From her light hand, as the IT expert tells in an interview, the name Sisi.Dev emerged. Interestingly, it was in the context of the name that Yulia remembered her military background — while serving in the Donbas-Ukraine battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, she heard a humorous feminine analogue of the noun «fighter» — «boytsytsa».

«There was a joke in the army — fighters, I remembered it. And somehow it went like this… That is, our name came about „as a joke,“ but then it grew into a constructive one, and we saw much more meaning in it. Well, at least for ourselves,» says Yulia Mazhaeva.

All three girls are originally from the Donetsk region, and before creating their own business, they worked together in the same web studio.

The current Head of UI/UX design at Sisi.Dev, Khrystyna Moroz, «pulled» Yulia to work at this web studio after she completed her army page and began to look for herself in civilian life. And it was, in fact, the army that introduced them, because Khrystyna actively volunteered for the Donbas-Ukraine battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where Yulia served.

Khrystyna Moroz, Alyona Kukhtina and Yulia Mazhaeva

During her service, the current founder of Sisi.Dev was in the hot spots of the ATO — Maryinka, Shyrokyne, Novoluhanske, on the first line of defense. Before that, she also volunteered, and went to serve when she saw a shortage of personnel in the same battalion «Donbas-Ukraine». According to her, she encountered only respect and adequate attitude towards women. «And this is precisely the merit of our female soldiers and volunteers, because with their work they proved to the whole world that a woman in the army is the same combat unit as men. And the benefit from this was enormous for the country,» — Yulia returns to the topic of her military past. Therefore, she emphasizes — words like «fighter» in the mouths of her comrades were nothing more than a friendly joke, but by no means a manifestation of superiority or misogyny.

According to the participants of Sisi.Dev, they later began to give their name other or deeper meanings.

«Firstly, we have women in our studio, and what distinguishes women from men? That’s why we thought it was a cool name. Secondly, for example, in Italian „si“ means „yes“. Like — yes, yes, say „yes“ to the development. Well, but, thirdly, you can think deeper — breasts are what nourishes, what gives growth,» sums up Yulia Mazhaeva.

She joked that the name of their studio might be a bit «Freudian,» but no one from the studio team or the clients ever put «lustful meanings» into it. «We are perceived as decent women who work and develop the IT sphere,» adds Founder and Project Manager Sisi.Dev.

We asked if the somewhat provocative name of their studio would scare off customers with a «very serious and official reputation.» In response, Yulia Mazhaeva notes that among their clients is a large company with a significant turnover, which fits into the reputation of a «serious business.» And it was her managers who gave the girls feedback on the name of their studio, noting that they really liked the idea.

Co-founder and Head of UI/UX design Khrystyna Moroz believes that the development period of their studio will show how it will work. «You can compare the comfort and quality of working with us, and this unusual name may start to work for us. Let’s see… I really like the reaction: usually people are a little embarrassed, but then they smile and this smile is real. I watch it,» says Khrystyna Moroz.

Without men. Or with them?

Of course, we couldn’t help but ask the representatives of Sisi.Dev whether the female representation of their team is a coincidence, or a conscious and militant position in an attempt to distance themselves from men or prove something to them. The Sisi.Dev team assures us that this is not the case.

«We don’t have a burning goal to prove anything to anyone. We just want to show by our example that women’s business is about support and mutual respect within the team. After all, we’ve all seen a lot of memes about women and working with women. The men who interact with us see our adequacy, and we don’t have any problems at all,» notes Yulia Mazhaeva.

Founder and Project Manager Yulia Mazhaeva during one of the IT events

According to the representatives of Sisi.Dev, they did not have any previous plans to create a women’s company, it just happened situationally and organically. «There were jokes when they told us that you are women, and everything depends on you, all processes were delegated to you, not to men. And we supported these jokes, agreed — yes, everything really depends on us,» recalls the founder of Sisi.Dev.

Yulia and Khrystyna worked together before creating their own studio, and then they met Alena Kukhtina, the current Business Development Manager and Marketing specialist. In 2023, the girls decided to organize their own web studio.

According to founder Yulia Mazhaeva, they have never encountered any manifestations of sexism, being a separate business under the Sisi.dev logo, but once, while working on an outsourcing project, she saw the worst examples of this. «There was another team of developers on the project, and I saw the attitude towards a woman who worked on this project. It’s just horrible. Humiliation, audacity, inappropriate jokes,» she recalls.

Yulia says that there have never been any sexist accusations from clients, such as that since they have women working for them, they shouldn’t be trusted to solve issues in the technological field.

«On the contrary. A woman is about responsibility and attentiveness. I would say so. And — and multitasking. We can do many things at the same time!», — says Yulia Mazhaeva, half-jokingly and half-seriously.

The participants of Sisi.Dev note that in their team, as in a women’s business, it is customary to help each other, not to compete, and to share their skills and knowledge. At the same time, for that matter, the Sisi.Dev team is not entirely female at the moment. So it will not work to accuse the girls of some kind of «militant feminism». Currently, the team of nine people includes one man — Frontend Developer.

According to the founder of Sisi.Dev, they had previously collaborated with this developer on other projects, and then they started bringing him in when the main full-time developer did not have a certain stack that he had experience with. So he gradually joined the all-female team, and, according to his colleagues, he feels great in it. «He also likes our topic (women’s business in IT — ed.) And he is comfortable working with us,» says the IT professional.

The topic of fighting for one’s rights resonates with girls, but not in the form of some kind of «militant feminism.» For founder Yulia, some conceptual things are important — for example, that the Day of Defenders of Ukraine was officially renamed the Day of Defenders of Ukraine, separately emphasizing the role of women in defending the Motherland.

«This is a good result of the fact that women fought for their rights, and now women defenders are also welcomed. If we are talking about IT, then, probably, as in the army, in some time no one will have the idea that this is a job exclusively for men. It’s just that people will work in IT — both women and men, and, perhaps, there will be a 50:50 percentage ratio. Because now, if you read some statistics, it’s still 20:80. We are „drowning“ for adequacy from all sides — both from the female and male sides, and for mutual respect,» explains Yulia Mazhaeva.

She is supported by her colleague and co-founder, Khrystyna Moroz, who says that she has never personally encountered any obvious discrimination against women, particularly in the IT field. They also have no intention of discriminating against men.

«I can’t imagine that we would say, ‘No, we’re not hiring him because he’s a man.’ It just happened that way, and a women’s project came together,» she notes.

As the Sisi.Dev participants say, in addition to the three of them — who have the roles of Project Manager, Head of UI/UX design, and Business Development Manager, they also have two developers, a web designer/graphic designer, a digital marketer, a photographer-videographer, and a targeting specialist on their team.

The author also asked the Sisi.dev participants how acutely sexism is still felt towards certain professions in the IT market — for example, developers are still commonly associated with men, while QA roles, management and design positions are «more feminine». Are such perceptions nothing more than some kind of rigid stereotype that is gradually being leveled?

Yulia Mazhaeva says that such primitive sexism works both ways, because when, for example, someone talks about a web designer, everyone immediately thinks that it must be a woman.

«And when a guy or a man comes to the table, everyone is like, hmm, something is wrong… Maybe someone thinks that only women can design something beautifully…. The same goes for programming, which, like, only men can program because it’s something complicated. It works both ways, and we’re all for breaking this stereotype. I would definitely work with a guy designer without hesitation,» Yulia explains her position.

Where do Sisi.Dev grow?

The Sisi.Dev participants state that they are currently working with Ukrainian companies, but have plans to expand, in particular, to the foreign market. «We will take steps in the media field to become not just „some studio,“ but a truly recognizable company in Ukraine. We are already planning to launch versions of our website for different countries, and also advertise and promote there in the English-speaking environment,» says Yulia Mazhaeva.

As for the domains with which Sisi.Dev has had the best cooperation, it is, first of all, a large portfolio of medical projects, e-commerce, but there are also other areas, including such non-trivial and at the same time different ones as energy and culture. She also noted that Sisi.Dev, for example, is engaged in the design of interfaces for voluminous and complex ERP systems developed by another company.

Creative Sisi.Dev advertising on license plates of a white Smart founder car

«I wouldn’t say we specialize in any one domain. But that’s how it has been historically — there have been many medical projects, and new clients from this area often find us through them. We also do a lot for e-commerce. But in general, we are open to working with any business when it comes to a corporate website and company presentation. We know how to work with it,» adds the founder of Sisi.Dev.

When asked where their clients come from, Sisi.Dev participants say that, in addition to advertising, «word of mouth» works well.

Sometimes clients also come simply after seeing ready-made solutions that Sisi.Dev has made for someone else.

«They just look at one of the websites we’ve developed, go through the copyright and contact us,» explains Yulia. For example, they were approached by «completely cold ice,» a dental clinic that positively evaluated the website they had created for another dental clinic.

As for specific customer requests, Co-founder and Head of UI/UX design Khrystyna Moroz says that they mostly serve individual orders, «which cannot be handled by designers.»

Co-founder and Head of UI/UX design Khrystyna Moroz at work

«That is, these are people who need individual solutions and constant attention. They need us to be able to delve into the idea of their business, into their request. Every time we develop something from scratch, we already know what will happen next. We lay the bricks so that we can develop it,» explains Khrystyna Moroz.

According to her, in general, there are a lot of requests for quick solutions on the market that «will not last very long,» but Sisi.Dev does not compete with those developers who «deploy projects in three hours and charge $100 for it.» According to her, this is a niche of the conditional Freelancehunt, with which they do not overlap. «Some people do not need quality. And we make sites that will work without significant changes for three to four years or more. Where you can change a block and the layout will not be broken,» says Khrystyna.

Interestingly, a number of Sisi.Dev projects are under NDA — precisely from the energy and mining sectors. «Energy is also an area where many people come to us simply from the examples on our websites. We don’t advertise it very much, but we are actively working in it,» adds Yulia Mazhaeva.

The Sisi.Dev participants shared that they are actively investing in two of their own products, which they are not yet ready to talk about out loud, and one of them is under NDA.

«We still have two startups. I can talk about one, I can’t talk about the other. We are working on a geo-based platform. This will be a product that will combine websites and a map in the services industry. I don’t want to detail our idea in general yet, but we are looking for investments, because it will be a rather expensive project. We are not talking about the second startup at all yet, but it is in the construction industry,» shared Yulia Mazhaeva.

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