Олег Онопрієнко Історії 10 February 2026, 09:00

“We don’t work with people with disabilities.” The story of a developer with SMA who forges his way into IT despite rejection, bureaucracy, and an ininclusive job market

Bohdan Shvets is a front-end and Unity developer with a terrible disease. He can write code, pass tests, and spend years honing his skills, but he can't physically come to the office because he's received hundreds of rejections from employers. We talked to Bohdan about remote work, which only exists in words, the fear of business in front of disabilities, and a system that leaves a person alone with his future.

The path to IT

Bohdan lives with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), uses a wheelchair, and requires assistance, but his intellectual potential and thirst for knowledge have always transcended his physical limitations.

In 2017, after passing the external assessment, the guy was unable to enter a university because the correspondence form of study was canceled right before the start of the semester, although it was listed as available on the website.

This injustice forced Bohdan to look for alternative ways to earn money online. From the age of 16, he started selling game tokens (RMT), trying to secure at least partial financial independence.

However, he understood that this was not the field that would allow him to fully support himself and build a future, so in 2021, Bohdan began his journey in programming, choosing the direction of front-end development.

"Since I was 16, I have been trying to make money online, but it wasn't enough to live independently. In 2021, I started studying programming on my own. In 2022, I got derailed due to the war, but since September I returned to my studies and in three months of intensive work I have consolidated the basics of creating websites," said Bohdan.

Bohdana sent over a hundred applications, but faced a deafening wall of silence or stereotyped rejections even after successfully completing test tasks, which he sometimes spent whole days on. What frustrated him the most was the lack of feedback. He could not get any clues as to where he had made a mistake.

From Front-end to Unity

Bohdan identified two key problems that hindered employment: lack of an official diploma and commercial experience.

To address the issue of experience, he moved into the field of game development and for two years, together with a friend, developed a 2D survival-action game on Unity.

What he enjoys most about game development is solving complex problems. He is fascinated by the process of being given a task that you don't understand at first and having to dive into learning the topic from scratch. It often happens that ready-made solutions simply don't exist, so you have to invent your own.

"When you get a task that you don't understand anything about, and you start looking for and studying everything related to it... and when you still complete such a task, it's a real thrill and a feeling that you're growing as a developer," said Bohdan.

"I've run out of money, I have nothing to eat" and "I often feel bullied." Stories of two IT workers who have disabilities and are trying to find work

In parallel with the development of the game, he continued to respond to vacancies, already indicating real development skills.

“When asked to point out my shortcomings, I always received silence. If my decision is so bad, how can I understand how to become better? My hands were falling, and I realized that I had two problems - lack of higher education and experience,” Bohdan shared his thoughts.

When Bohdan started receiving more responses to Unity developer vacancies, a new insurmountable barrier appeared. Many companies, even with remote work in the future, required the candidate to be physically present in the office for a trial period of 1–2 weeks, which is physically impossible for Bohdan.

Companies tried to protect themselves from fraud, but automatically cut off people who were technically capable of doing the job but couldn't cross the office threshold.

Bureaucratic hell and educational deadlock

In parallel with his job search, Bohdan spent three years trying to break through the bureaucratic wall of the Ministry of Education to enter a university through an interview, since his health did not allow him to take the NMT.

The university commission claimed that it did not know how to act, because "there were no such cases," and referred it to the ministry, while the Ministry of Education and Science wrote back that the university commission should deal with this issue.

This “vicious circle” of bureaucracy and employer refusals is becoming increasingly critical as time goes by and Bohdan’s family, who care for him, are not getting any younger. The question of who will take care of him in the future remains open, and Bohdan sees the only way out in professional fulfillment that will allow him to independently provide for his life.

"The last time I submitted all possible documents to the university commission, I got into a vicious circle. They had no such cases, so they don't know what to do with me, they sent me to the ministry. When I asked the ministry, the answer was: 'The university commission should deal with this,'" Bohdan emphasized in a comment for dev.ua

Labor market realities: "We don't work with such people"

The most painful stage was the outright rejections. Bohdan does not hide his disability, and although many people asked about the possibility of a full-time internship, the real shock came from cases of direct discrimination. Only during 2025, he heard a phrase that crossed out his professional skills three times.

I heard the phrase "We don't work with people with disabilities" not very often, of course, but I definitely remember it being said three times, and all of them were in 2025.

Bohdan suggests that businesses may be afraid of legal complications when hiring or firing people with the first disability group, although he himself did not contact the employment service or human rights activists, believing that he should first and foremost be "profitable" as a specialist.

"I had one thought about it... maybe there are some legal problems with the hiring and firing of such people, but this is just my opinion on this topic," the developer noted in a conversation with dev.ua.

Bohdan continues to search for a company that is willing to provide real remote work without the requirement to “come to the office for two weeks.” His health is deteriorating and his family is aging, so the issue of self-sufficiency is more pressing than ever.

"I'm not asking for sympathy, but for help and opportunities," Bohdan summed up.

“I had to go on sabbatical to get back to life and not fall into a severe depression.” A project manager told dev.ua why she left IT and opened a dog shop

"I was covered after three months of searching." How a June IT girl made her way to an offer in IT through depression, constant bombardment and trashy interviews

"For many people with disabilities, IT could be a field for professional fulfillment." The story of an EPAM DevOps who entered IT despite an injury and is now completely happy