For the project, SoftServe is looking for Data Science specialists in Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Colombia, Spain, and Chile.

• The aim of the lab is to accelerate the implementation of disruptive AI technology through the adoption of GenAI in various fields and industries, helping businesses solve specific problems and implement innovations in the real world. It also aims to expand the company’s expertise in machine learning and multimodal AI.

“Unlike other areas, GenAi stands out with its novelty and emerged properties unveiling not just technological innovations, but also groundbreaking use cases that may redefine business strategies. The pace of innovation here is staggering, ofter overwhelming business with new advancements released weekly. This is where the Gen Ai Lab shines. It’s not just a hub for rapid experimentation, value discovery, and solution engineering with the latest techniques and technologies. It’s a conduit for channeling this explosive innovation directly to our clients”.

Alex Chubay, CTO, SoftServe, says.

• Within the Gen AI Lab, SoftServe will work in the following key areas:
  • research and validation of generative AI applications (AI Discovery),
  • experiments and testing of AI on specific business cases (AI Launchpad),
  • rapid scaling and industrialization of AI (AI Adoption).
• As part of the work in the Gen AI Lab, SoftServe specialists will use tools and technology platforms in partnership with AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and NVIDIA.

“SoftServe is always at the forefront of tech progress. Today, GenAI is a truly breakthrough technology that has the potential to radically transform both the technology sector and open new horizons in many industries. In our lab, we analyze and adapt this technology in depth, exploring its capabilities in software and Big Data processing for specific business areas and industries. That’s why we invite specialists who want to work on the latest technologies from the idea to the actual implementation of innovations, opening up new opportunities for our clients and partners,”

Yurii Milovanov, AVP AI & Data Science, SoftServe, comments.

About SoftServe

SoftServe is the largest global IT company founded in 1993 in Lviv by Ukrainians Taras Kytsmey and Yaroslav Lubinets. The company provides software development and consulting services. More than 12,000 employees work in more than 50 offices located from San Francisco to Singapore. The company’s headquarters are located in Lviv and Austin (USA). SoftServe’s clients include IBM, Cisco, Panasonic, Cloudera, Henry Schein, Spillman Technologies, and others.

SoftServe is one of the largest IT companies with Ukrainian roots. In recent years, it has been opening R&D centers in different countries across the world.

Last year, for example, the company opened an office in Dubai. SoftServe also operates in South America.

The company crossed the 10,000 employee mark in 2021. The company explains this growth of the staff by the very high demand for digital services and the increase in the number of clients over the last year. Previously, only EPAM had hit the 10,000-employee mark.

• The company has been working on the launch for the past six months.
• The main reason for opening the office is the support of clients from Romania and development in the local market. Also, according to Semenyshyn, Romania rates among the top 20 countries with the best software engineers globally. So the company will have access to quality human resources.
• Currently, SoftServe has more than 80 job openings for the new office.

With over 500,000 IT professionals employed in software engineering in Mexico, Colombia, and Chile combined, and given its geographical proximity to the US, Latin America is an attractive destination for the global delivery operations of major technology players.

“Entering a new market is a significant step for the company. It is important for us not only to expand geography and become closer to our partners in North America but also to transfer our experience and values to another continent. And this is proactive participation in the development of the local IT industry, the building of IT communities through the support of education, employee development, the introduction of the best social responsibility initiatives, environmental practices, and charitable projects,” comments Yaroslav Lyubinets, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board, SoftServe.

The company plans to hire 3,000 employees in Latin America by the end of 2025. Currently, the company has 50 job openings in the region. Also, this year, SoftServe plans to start cooperation with several technical universities in Guadalajara, Bogota, Medellin, and Santiago.

In total, SoftServe currently has more than 12,000 employees and 41 offices in 12 countries. The biggest number of development centers of the company are located in Ukraine, however, SoftServe’s presence in Poland and Bulgaria is also rapidly developing.

Who is the richest in the IT industry

• 8th place in Top 100 richest Ukrainians in 2021 is taken by the co-founder of the UK-based fintech startup Revolut, Vlad Yatsenko. His net worth is estimated by NV at $1.277B. In July of 2021, Revolut raised $800M, and its valuation increased sixfold: from $5.5B in 2020 to $33B.
• 14th spot is occupied by the founder of the aerospace firm Firefly Aerospace, Max Polyakov, with a fortune of about $540M. In May of 2021, Firefly Aerospace raised nearly $200M, and its valuation went way beyond $1B.

According to AIN.UA’s estimates, the ranking takes just one of Polyakov’s assets, Firefly Aerospace, into account. It was valued at more than $1B even before its launch. The worth of his other aerospace companies and all the IT businesses are not factored in.

• 17th place is held by the owner of Rozetka Vladyslav Chechotkin. According to NV, Chechotkin’s net worth is $472M.

The share of Vladyslav Chechotkin is often miscalculated, with the total attributed to Chechotkin alone. But this includes shares of two entrepreneurs, Vladyslav and Iryna Chechotkin, who own the company that the stake in Rozetka belongs to. Thus, according to AIN.UA’s own calculations, the figure of $472M reported by Novoye Vremya is in the range of $359M to $526M but should be attributed to both stakeholders.

• Spots 23, 24, and 25 are taken by Alex Shevchenko, Dmytro Lider, and Max Lytvyn, the co-founders of Grammarly, an online spelling and grammar checker. NV estimates each one’s net worth at $386M.

In calculating the wealth of the co-founders of Grammarly, the valuation of the company at $2.3B should be factored in, as cited by PitchBook and confirmed by the American Forbes magazine. Considering that the latest round took place back in 2019 (the co-founders’ shares have remained the same) and their cumulative share being 76%, the valuation of the fortunes of Alex Shevchenko, Dmytro Lider, and Max Lytvyn, according to AIN.UA, should be about $582M each, which is $196M more than cited by Novoye Vremya.

• The founder and CEO of Ajax Systems, Aleksandr Konotopskyi, is in 26th place, with a net worth of about $380M.
• No. 30 is occupied by one of the co-founders of GitLab company, Dmytro Zaporozhets, with a fortune of approximately $375M. On October 14, 2021, Gitlab went public on Nasdaq. Today its shares are listed on the market at $113.75 per share, and its total capitalization exceeds $15B. Dmytro Zaporozhets owns 2.5% of the firm’s stock, hence his high position in the ranking.
• 37th spot is taken by the founder of People.ai, Oleg Rogynskyy. NV estimates his net worth at $279M. In August of 2021, People.ai raised $100M as part of a new investment round and was valued at $1.1B. As such, the company became a unicorn. Besides, Oleg Rogynskyy has mentioned that, given the current size of the company, it is time to think about an IPO.
• 42nd and 51st positions are held by the co-founders of the IT company SoftServe Taras Kytsmey ($245M) and Yaroslav Lyubinets ($199M). Taras Vervega ($167M), Yuriy Vasylyk ($131M), and Oleh Denys ($130M) are ranked 63rd, 77th, and 78th, respectively.
• 48th place in Top 100 richest Ukrainians in 2021 is taken by the founder and director of Terrasoft company, Katherine Kostereva, with a net worth of $207M, according to NV.

The calculations by AIN.UA show that the value of Katherine Kostereva’s share is significantly lower. At the time of leaving Terrasoft, Alexander Popov owned a 44.75% stake, valued at $51M. Based on the information that he and Kostereva had equal shares, hers should be valued at $51M too, instead of the $207M cited in the NV ranking.

• Oleksandr Kosovan, CEO and founder of MacPaw, is ranked 52nd. His net worth is estimated at $196M.
• Spots 53, 98, 99, and 100 are taken by the co-founders of Fintech Band, the developers of monobank Dmytro Dubilet with $196M, Oleg Gorokhovskyi — $100M, Yevheniya Kryvenko (Yatsenko) — $100M, and Mykhaylo Rogalskiy — $100M.

Who else has made it into the Top 100 richest Ukrainians in 2021

• 22nd place is occupied by the director general and co-owner of Fozzy Group, Volodymyr Kostelman. His fortune is estimated at $388M. Beside him, the ranking also features Roman Chyhir ($175M) and Oleh Sotnykov ($175M), ranked 58th and 59th, respectively. Fozzy Group also has an IT subdivision, and recently, they have tested a service to compete with zakaz.ua.
• The net worth of $346M has earned 32nd place to Stepan Chernovetskyi, head of the investment company Chernovetskyi Investment Group having some IT projects in its portfolio.
• No. 39 and No. 40 are taken by the co-founders of Nova Poshta, Volodymyr Popereshnyuk and Viacheslav Klymov, with a fortune of about $273M each.
• The developer Vasyl Khmelnytsky with a net worth of $223M is ranked 43rd. His main asset is UFuture Investment Group.
• 91st spot is occupied by the owner of the multistore Comfy, Stanislav Ronis. His net worth is estimated at $111M.

The richest five

At the top of the ranking, like in the last year, comes Rinat Akhmetov, whose fortune is valued at $11.5B (to put this into context: last year, Akhmetov’s wealth was estimated at nearly just half as much, $6.6m). The top 5 also include Viktor Pinchuk ($2.6B), Vadym Novynskyi ($2.44B), Petro Poroshenko ($1.52B), and Kostyantyn Zhevago ($1.497B).

For the first time, a company with over 11,000 employees (EPAM) appeared in the ranking, and in general, the staff of the top 50 Ukrainian IT companies grew by 12%.

Here is the full list of the top 50:

• This year, Together Networks was included in the ranking for the first time. In 2020, the company was actively growing with its product in the field of dating. Beetroot returned to the 50th position in the ranking. AllSTARSIT and Brightgrove were also included for the first time.
• This edition of the ranking does not feature Murka Games, Jooble, Netpeak Group, Samsung R&D Institute Ukraine.
• During the first half of 2021, the number of professionals at the top 50 companies grew by 12.7% (9,719 people). As of July 1, 2021, these companies employed over 86,000 people.
• Twenty-three companies included in the ranking grew by over 100 professionals in six months. In the second half of 2020, similar trends were observed in 16 companies.
• Only eight companies from the top 50 opened new offices in the first half of 2021.
• Thirty-two companies said they plan to hire 100+ new professionals in the next six months.
• Only three companies are ready to relocate 50-100 specialists. The majority of companies (28) do not have such plans.
• Most of the companies from the ranking (36) have employees practicing a hybrid work model — they mix work in offices and from home. Only three companies on the list work completely remotely.

Why did SoftServe buy a former penal colony?

• The owners always wanted to create a creative campus in Lviv. They checked various locations where they could unite most of the company offices. Now there are 12 offices in different places within Lviv.
• Compared to the former prison, the other options were either smaller, worse located, or divided between different owners. That is why we chose penal colony No. 48.
• According to Oleh Denys, both space and location, destination and communication were exactly as we desired. This location is also close to the Lviv Business School of UCU, the Lviv airport, a shopping mall, markets, the exit of the city, etc. The company couldn’t find a better alternative, Oleh Denys said.

How will the creative campus look like?

• The SoftServe co-founder also said, “there were many jokes that we buy a jail, mostly positive ones.” Looking at social media, someone truly believed that SoftServe would rebuild the prison into its new offices. What we do plan is to create here a completely new and modern space, said Denys.
• All rooms of the buildings and the location itself will be renovated. Everybody will be able to access them, not only the employees of the company. “There will be no borders and spikes anymore — it will be an open space for all,” he said.

• The campus will include offices, conference halls, exhibition halls, and a science museum. Now SoftServe is preparing to hold a tender to determine the company that will create the concept of the campus. It is expected that it will be ready by December 2021. Then it will hold an architectural competition, detail the concept, and select contractors.
• On the campus, there likely will be living rooms too. SoftServe wants to create an environment where visitors will be able to combine work, life, and rest to make its employees feel sure about schools and kindergartens for their children and avoid the feeling they’re living at work.
• If there will be living quarters on campus, they will probably be available not only for purchase but also for long-term rentals.
• The final design of the campus is still awaiting confirmation. “Our first idea was to establish a museum of science. I do not know if it is going to be a museum of science or technology. Probably a museum, or maybe a funicular between the offices. We should discuss it with citizens and get more ideas. We would like to make this space attractive and creative-driving. Lviv really needs this at the moment,” said the co-owner.

It is noted that the office in Dubai is needed to support clients in the Middle East — the company adds that their number is growing rapidly. In total, 150 business trips of the company’s representatives to the UAE took place during 2019-2020. The new office has been opened in the Dubai Internet City business center.

SoftServe’s new office in Dubai will offer customers a full range of services, from advisory and consulting to onsite project management, implementation, and ongoing support. In addition to business development, the office will also employ software developers.

“We are excited to bring our expertise to meet the growing demand for software development and digital transformation in this region,” says Volodymyr Semenyshyn, Executive Vice President EMEA at SoftServe. “Our new Dubai office will allow us to better support and develop our customers with innovations around AI, machine learning, cloud-based solutions, and digital banking solutions. As we look ahead to building long-term and sustainable relationships across the Middle East while providing the latest technological solutions and services, our local presence is an evolutionary step in developing key markets in this region.”

Referring back to our previous article, earlier SoftServe announced that it had crossed the 10,000 employees mark.

Since the beginning of 2021, the company has increased its staff by 26%, hiring 2,820 new employees with 2,200 technical experts among them. The majority of professionals were hired in Lviv.

• Since the beginning of the year, the company has hired 708 professionals in Lviv
• in Kyiv – 456
• in Dnipro – 370
• in Kharkiv – 362

During the last six months, in addition to the Lviv office, where the main office and R&D center of the company is located, the number of team members exceeded 1,000 people in three more cities: Kyiv, Dnipro, and Kharkiv.

The company explains this growth of the staff by the very high demand for digital services and the increase in the number of clients over the last year.

Previously, only EPAM had hit the 10,000-employee mark.

• Annual revenue growth in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Belarus slowed from 20-25% to 10-15% amid the pandemic but began to grow rapidly in the fourth quarter.
• The revenue of 5 CEE players out of the 50 largest IТ service companies exceeded $100 million, 6 others exceeded the mark of $200 million. Among the companies with offices in Ukraine are Epam, Luxoft, GlobalLogic, and SoftServe.

• The total volume of IT exports generated by Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Belarus is over $18 billion.
• The total number of IT professionals in the region is over 660,000.
• The annual number of tech graduates is more than 60,000 people.
• Number of mergers and acquisitions in 2015-2020 – 137; in 2020 – 29.

Among the major deals for 2020-2021 in Ukraine are:

• Sigma Software acquired the Kharkiv-based outsourcing company IdeaSoft. According to AIN.UA, the transaction amounted to $1.5 million.
• The US company Cprime acquired the Ukrainian Archer Software. According to experts, 100% of the company could be valued at $5-8 million.
• SARS Capital invested in the outsourcing company S-PRO.
• Grid Dynamics acquired the technology company Daxx.
• IT company Ciklum raised strategic investments from the technology investment platform Recognize Partners.

On September 16, the leaked data was published. This time, in addition to customers’ data, it also contained personal data of about 200 people – probably SoftServe employees. The company informed AIN.UA that it was not a new breach, but the data from the previous leak.

What happened

After the first data breach, SoftServe neither confirmed nor denied it. The company said it was conducting an internal investigation. However, the repositories contained a line that confirms that the developments did leak from SoftServe:

In the meantime, a new data archive became available online. It contains previously unpublished developments for customers, and also a database of scanned copies of national and international passports, which probably belong to SoftServe employees. That was reported by Telegram channel, DC8044 F33d, citing to a Russian hacker nicknamed Freedom F0x. According to preliminary estimates, personal data of more than 200 people has been compromised.

AIN.UA checked the leaked archive, and it does contain scans of passports of Ukrainians and citizens of other Eastern European countries. It is not yet known whether it indeed belongs to the employees of SoftServe. The only thing that points to it is the name of the archive.

As for customer developments, among the repositories breached on September 16 are banking applications, parts of code of CRM systems, as well as developments for the Cylance antivirus.

According to the hacker cited by @DC8044 F33d, there is more to come: more data has been leaked as a result of attack than has been published so far.

SoftServe Comment

The company confirmed to AIN.UA the data breach in the hacker attack on SoftServe on September 1. The company expects hackers to demand a ransom. The company is continuing its investigation.

“The attack happened on September 1. The data, which was published on September 16, is the result of the same incident. So, there was no new data breach. That is a common tactic in such cases, the purpose of which is to intimidate a company and to demand a ransom,” the company told AIN.UA.

As mentioned earlier, SoftServe systems localized the attack, and our information security team took immediate action to restore the system. In this situation, as in any other, the security of our customers and employees remains our priority. Now a third party is conducting a comprehensive independent investigation of this incident.”

The editor of AIN.UA requested SoftServe to confirm or refute the information – the company is dealing with the situation, the press-service replied. 

What happened

Hackers attacked SoftServe at 1 am on September 2. Ransom virus and other kinds of malware were launched into the system. Consequently, some of the company’s services stopped working. However, according to the senior vice president of IT at SoftServe Adriyan Pavlikevich, the attack was localized and client data was not affected.

At the same time, the source code repositories of developments for a number of companies, which may be the SoftServe clients, were leaked online today. IBM, Toyota, Panasonic, Cisco and others might be among them. Some repositories contain a line that indicates that the data belongs to SoftServe.

The administrators of the @DС8044_Info channel claim that sources at SoftServe have verified the authenticity of the repositories, and that they were stolen in a recent hacker attack.

“All files with the program code published by unknown hackers on the @freedomf0x channel relate to different projects for large clients of #SoftServe,” the message says.

Hackers could supposedly gain access to the developments by getting into the virtual computers of SoftServe programmers. 

What is the source

The @freedomf0x channel with 15,000+ subscribers is managed by a hacker from the Russian Federation. And it is not his main channel.

What does SoftServe say

The company did not confirm or refute the authenticity of published developments. It also did not answer the question of how critical the data breach is for the company’s clients.

“As we continue to investigate the security incident that happened on the night of Tuesday, it is important to distinguish between where the fact is and where the intention to cause fear or destabilization of the company is. We will know the answer to this question after the completion of the complex investigation, Adriyan Pavlikevich commented to the editor of AIN.UA.

We managed to restore the main damaged services within a few hours after the attack. Now we are concluding the restoration of the internal services on a full scale. Our plans are to complete the investigation in the short term.”

The first 15 positions of the rating look like this:The entire rating can be found here.

This year, the growth rate of the number of specialists is breaking the records of the last five years.

The growth of the “big five” for the second half of 2018 was 12% (2,573 specialists). In total, the top-5 employ 23,865 specialists, which is 41% of the total number of top-50. During the second half of the year, seven companies showed absolute gains of over 200 people: SoftServe (954 specialists), EPAM (900) GlobalLogic (532), Ring Ukraine (350), Nexteum (230), Intellias and ZONE3000 (200 each).The leaders in growth were Infopulse, Elex, Evoplay, Intellias, Lohika.

Two new companies also appeared in the ranking, those are TicketsUA (38th place) and G5 Entertainment (49th place), while Daxx BV returned to 48th place.

Over the past six months, twice as many companies from the top 50 have opened new offices (13 vs. 6 in January-July 2018). So new locations appeared in Kyiv and Lviv. Overseas offices were opened in Malaga, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow, Toronto, Turin, London, Bucharest, Eindhoven, Charlotte, Chicago and even in Tokyo and Seoul.40% of companies plan to grow more than 100 professionals in the first half of 2019. Only 2 out of 45 companies that took part in the survey do not plan to increase the number of specialists.Most companies do not plan to export specialists from Ukraine abroad. Rating for July 2018 can be found here.

“Over 1,500 Specialists”Category

This year, Infopulse was recognized the best employer among the largest Ukrainian IT companies. SoftServe and GlobalLogic got into the top-three. Luxoft and NIX Solutions were not represented in this rating as they had not overcome the barrier of 10% votes of the total staff quantity.

“800-1,500 Specialists”Category

Genesis won in this category with minimum 95 scores in each question pool. The last-year winner Intellias took the second place, and SigmaSoftware – the third one.

“200-800 Specialists”Category

Govitall is the winner in this category. Trionika and Netpeak go behind. Terrasoft, the last-year silver medalist, did not overcome the barrier by minimum number of votes.

81-200 Specialists”Category

Codemotion wins the second consecutive year, and now in the “81-200 specialists” category. 52 interviewed employees gave maximum scores to the company. Ringostat, Technorely and ActiveBridge also got the highest scores and took the second, third and fourth place, respectively.

Food Companies

This year was the first time when DOU made the food companies rating. Ringostat took the first place, and M2E Pro and Terrasoft also got to the top-three.

In addition, the rating includes the employers breakdown by cities:

• The best employer in Kyiv — Codemotion
• Kharkiv — ITOMYCH STUDIO
• Lviv —  Leobit
• Dnipro — LANARS
• Odesa — Netpeak
• Vinnytsia — Pillar
• Cherkasy — Active Bridge