Work

The caution of foreign customers due to the war, the mobilization of employees, preparation for a difficult winter, and changing customer expectations due to the development of artificial intelligence are among the challenges that the heads of Ukrainian IT companies name in 2026. At the same time, AI is changing not only the development process, but also the very model of cooperation: instead of a team of specialists, customers are increasingly expecting a specific result, and budgets and project durations are being revised. We asked representatives of Levi9 Ukraine, Ciklum, and Railsware about what is affecting their business the most, how demand from foreign customers has changed, and what risks they see in the second half of 2026.

Predictions that AI will massively reduce the need for programmers have yet to be borne out by hiring data. Tech companies are once again adding to their hiring pipeline, and demand for software engineers remains high.

According to government and military forecasts, the winter of 2026–2027 may be much more difficult than previous ones — with longer and more widespread power outages. dev.ua asked several IT companies in Ukraine — ZONE3000, EPAM, Ciklum, Railsware, and Appflame — how they are preparing: is there an action plan in case of prolonged blackouts, backup hubs in other cities, and relocation programs for employees.

The first 30 days do not give a final answer as to whether a person will stay in the company. But they are the ones that largely shape his attitude towards the new place. And the first strong signal is given by the company even before the newcomer completes his first task. If his day begins with searching for documents, waiting for equipment and correspondence for access, it quickly becomes clear that no one prepared for his arrival. SharksCode adheres to a different principle: onboarding does not begin on the first day of work, but long before. Therefore, on the first morning, a person should not deal with organizational routine, but understand their goals, team, and next steps.

According to Freelancehunt analytics, in August 2026, 31% fewer new projects were published on the platform than in January. Against the backdrop of a decrease in orders, the number of specialists themselves did not decrease, but the number of offers from them increased, which caused a jump in competition for each task. Similar negative dynamics are recorded by global platforms such as Upwork, Freelancer.com and Fiverr. The reason is not only general economic factors, but also the active implementation of artificial intelligence: cheap and standardized tasks disappear the fastest. In Ukraine, the situation is further complicated by the war, which causes projects from domestic customers to fail significantly faster than from foreign ones.