KICK-START YOUR SOFTWARE
TEAM IN POLAND

Tailored solutions from nearshore teams to office setup

Execute value assessment

We help you make a decision about expanding your engineering abroad

Technology companies across Europe and in the US face challenges filling software development positions. This drives the costs up and decreases businesses competitiveness. Some software companies decide to look for talent abroad, but struggle to make their choice. Which country to choose? What risk will I have to face? What is the cost? Will it solve my problems?

In the Preliminary Assessment we execute an initial evaluation that gives you a better understanding how expansion abroad could work for you. We typically start with an interview of key executives and internal stakeholders to get to know your motivation, expectations and constraints. Then we analyze the data gathered and put it into the context of Poland IT market. As a result, we provide you with the initial analysis and recommendation on the possible strategies.

Additionally we can provide more thorough analysis that includes financial figures and a timeline of expansion. This is typically used to create a list of strategies for entering IT market in Poland.

Build offshoring strategy

We work jointly with you to define how you can expand your engineering abroad

Software businesses willing to expand to an offshore location often find it difficult to define the right strategy to move forward. This in many instances ends in either too conservative or too risky decisions. Should we hire a dedicated team or use freelance experts? Should we open our own office or used a shared space? Should we establish a legal entity or work with a partner? What functions should we delegate? How should we move forward?

Motife helps you define the Offshoring Strategy tailored to your company’s needs. We take into account various factors including, but not limited to, the planned size of the team, your timeframe, specifics of the services or products you develop, your technology stack, your budget or investment you are willing to make.

We work jointly with you to pick one or the combination of the following scenarios:

• Hiring freelance consultants in Poland to work with your HQ engineers
• Establishing your own, dedicated team that is employed by us, or
• Establishing a local office with dedicated team employed by you

Our goal is to help you grow by building an optimal expansion strategy adjusted to the risk you are willing to take.

We start with the data gathered as a result of Preliminary Assessment and jointly pick one strategy that will be detailed.  We develop a plan that includes a list of activities, a schedule, key milestones, anticipated costs and required resources. We present the initial version and then incorporate your feedback to form the final version of the strategy.

Conduct end-to-end recruitment

We find the best matching talent through a comprehensive recruitment process

Recruitment is the key element of our services portfolio. Whether you decide to use freelance experts, our consultants, or you choose to hire dedicated personnel in Kraków, Poland, having the right people is the most important factor for a successful international expansion of your development team.

We provide a comprehensive recruitment service that goes beyond traditional preliminary screening. With 15+ years of experience in hiring technical talent we are able to perform a complete screening of the candidates, including assessment of their technical skills. The typical recruitment process we execute is the following:

Preparation with client

• Establishing goals, expectations, and constraints of the hiring project
• Building a customized candidate assessment sheet
• Sorting out the salaries and package to match the local market conditions
• Then collaborating with our professional sourcers to build the candidates shortlist

Execution for each candidate

• Preliminary screening
• Initial interview to assess the soft- and technical skills
• Face-to-face interview where we perform additional technical assessment as described in assessment sheet
• The final interview with the client, either remotely or in-person.

Finalization

• Negotiation of contract terms
• Assistance with onboarding, training, and if needed a candidate relocation

If requested,  we may work with specialized 3rd party recruitment agencies. However we own the entire recruitment process to make sure it is executed seamlessly and with highest quality of service.

Set up office

We choose the right space for your team

You may decide to have your team operate in the “work-from-home” model or establish your own office in Kraków. We believe that your office should represent your company’s unique culture and requirements.

We help you find and rent the most suitable location. Following are some of the options:

• A shared, serviced office space with no initial expenditure required and a short rental period
• Your own office space with a very flexible rental period
• A fully-fledged A-class office space in a modern office building

When recommending office location for you we consider factors like its attractiveness for IT professionals, availability of public transport, and how representative it is so that you can invite your customers for site visits or meetings.

We work with trusted real estate professionals in Krakow to ensure that the office space for your team in Kraków matches your needs.

Manage teams

We provide interim management for your new team

Recruiting skilled technology experts is crucial, but it is equally important to have the right local management team in place. The impact of lack of proper management of offshore operations can be significant.

With our experience in growing off-shore locations and managing software development teams we offer best-in-class interim management services. This approach helps you smoothly start up in Poland and build a good management team along the way.

Part of our management offering is providing to your team all necessary training or certifications using trusted local training providers.

In addition to the team or office management we also provide more specialized services in the area of software project management and product management.

Support finance, IT, HR

We assure smooth operations with access to the trusted supporting functions

In addition to our management services we provide access to the trusted, local supporting functions. This includes finance and accounting, ITO, human resources or legal support. We cooperate with local 3rd party firms that have a proven track record of working for international software development companies.

TALENT

Great engineers

Poland has a long tradition of high-ranked engineering schools and Polish developers are widely known for their expertise and problems solving skills. Some of them specialize in very niche domains and some are experts in specific technologies. Most of them speak good English and are very technology savvy. Recently Poland has been ranked as #3 top programmers location globally by HackerRank .

Universities and young graduates

With over 100 000 students, Kraków is a young and vibrant city. It is a home to 20+ college and graduate schools, including several engineering universities. When in Kraków, you will see young people everywhere. Every year hundreds of them graduate with technical degrees and look for a job in Kraków. Top engineering schools include University of Science and Technology (AGH), Jagiellonian University and Cracow Polytechnic.

Local Ecosystem

Talent is not only about educated individuals, but also about having a right environment. The local community of developers is very active in Kraków and there is an ever growing number of IT industry meetups. Large number of Polish and international IT companies based in Kraków allows developers to grow and become experienced professionals.

CULTURE

Proximity

In a restaurant, in the office, or on the streets, you will notice how culturally proximate Polish are. Historical and cultural ties with Germany, Austria, Sweden, France, U.K. or Ireland made Poles culturally very similar to many other European nations. Our traditional food resembles the German cuisine, Polish modern design is akin to Scandinavian design, we like culture like the French, and we socialize like the Irish.

All this becomes very important when working in international teams and when people need to communicate efficiently, have common work ethics, and build great teams.

Friendly people

You can expect a warm welcome in Poland. People who live here are kind and helpful. They strive to create well-integrated groups. At work they develop strong relations and in projects they act as a team and not a group of individuals.

Can-do attitude

You will also notice that Poles have a natural tendency to exercise their problem solving skills. With right attitude, they find creative ways of solving issues, often using unconventional approaches. This helps when you are a start-up, but also when you are a matured organization that starts its presence in Poland. Giving the right amount of autonomy you may leverage this to

LOCATION

Unique atmosphere

You will find Kraków as a unique place to meet, live, or work. People create inspiring, creative atmosphere, but also the city itself with its long history and medieval architecture creates an outstanding space.

IT Scene

The energy and potential come from unique combination of talent, business and educational institutions that turned Kraków into IT capital of Poland. You will see dozens of shiny new A-class office buildings, with software firms’ logos on top, where variety of IT companies located their offices. From multinational corporations like Nokia or IBM to smaller firms like Guidewire or Making Waves, the number of software companies in Kraków has quadrupled in the last 10 years.  

In the center of Europe

You will find it easy and convenient to get to Kraków. With direct flights to more than 50 European cities and a brand new airport terminal, Krakow is just couple hours away. Membership in European Union and Schengen makes traveling to Poland as easy as it can get. 10M+ visitors come to Kraków every year and the city ranks as a top tourist destination which means crowded old town in the summer and an unparalleled number of hotels and restaurants all-year-round.

ECONOMY

Stability

Many Poles enjoy the benefits of growing economy. A stable GDP growth of ~3% per year has allowed the economy to catch up after years of centrally governed socialistic system. From being predominantly an agriculture and heavy industry economy 30 years ago, Poland reinvented itself to become a mostly services based economy with some new industries becoming more and more important like tourism, automotive or IT.

Polish Wallet

Poland uses its own currency złoty (literally means “gold”). Złoty has kept almost constant rate against Euro (1 EUR is 4.2 zł) in the last 10 years. When in a restaurant, bar or in taxi/Uber, you will find prices being half of what you have back home. Also, there’s no need to exchange money as Poland has one of the highest rates of electronic payments adoption with contactless credit cards being accepted virtually everywhere.

Job Market

Poland enjoys relatively low unemployment rate of 7.2%. You might notice, that Poland is also welcoming jobseekers from other EU countries as well as from Ukraine with more than 1M foreigners currently being employed here.