September 2025 - Optiveum

Month: September 2025

IT Talent Market in Poland: Opportunities and Search for Quality.

Posted on by mateo2314

A Changed Market: From Surging Demand to Strategic Hiring

As the co-founder of Optiveum, an IT recruitment company operating across Europe and the Middle East, I’ve had a front-row seat to the evolving dynamics of the tech talent market. And one thing is clear: the frenzied demand for developers that dominated the market in 2021–2023 has definitely cooled.

Back then, companies were desperate to hire developers, DevOps, and data engineers. Candidates were fielding multiple offers, negotiating hard, and often receiving generous counter-offers. Salaries surged, and recruiters had to move fast and creatively just to keep up. It was, in many ways, a candidate’s market.

Fast forward to 2025, and the market looks quite different. The pace has slowed. Employers are more cautious, and hiring decisions are now often tied to larger, long-term strategies rather than urgent delivery needs. But this doesn’t mean opportunity has disappeared — far from it. We’re beginning to see encouraging signs of stabilization, and in certain sectors, even growth.

Why Poland Is Still a Magnet for Global Investment

One of the reasons Poland remains attractive is its relative political and economic stability. Compared to other regions — whether it’s the uncertainty in Western economies or rising costs in Asia — Poland presents a safe, predictable, and business-friendly environment. This has not gone unnoticed by international companies.

At Optiveum, we currently work with four global clients who are actively expanding their engineering teams in Poland. Two of these clients are based in the United States. One is a Scandinavian tech firm. The fourth is a dynamic company from the Middle East. What’s fascinating is the strategic nature of these decisions — and how they reflect Poland’s growing reputation not just as a cost-effective location, but as a high-quality one.

From India to Poland: A Surprising Shift

The two US companies we work with have both made the decision to move part of their teams from India to Poland. On the surface, this might seem surprising. India has long been associated with affordable and skilled IT labor. However, both companies have shared that the quality of engineering in Poland, combined with cultural fit, strong communication skills, and time zone advantages, make it worth the higher cost. It’s a significant shift — one that signals Poland’s maturing role in global tech delivery.

New Engineering Centres and Leadership Roles

The Scandinavian company is expanding its team steadily, while the client from the Middle East is doing something even more ambitious: establishing an entirely new engineering center in Poland. The exact location is still flexible — any major Polish city is under consideration — but the goal is clear. This center will become the nucleus for a next-generation trading platform. And with that comes the need for strong leadership.

They are now looking for a Head of Engineering to lead this effort, someone with experience in building platforms in banking, crypto, or trading environments. What makes this role stand out is the opportunity it offers: the chance to build a center from the ground up, shape the team, and influence a global tech product from day one.

Meanwhile, one of the American companies is also hiring for a leadership role — a Director of Data Engineering & Analytics who will define their global data architecture and analytics strategy. These aren’t just back-office support roles; they’re strategic, business-critical positions. And they’re being placed in Poland.

New Engineering Centres and Leadership Roles

The Scandinavian company is expanding its team steadily, while the client from the Middle East is doing something even more ambitious: establishing an entirely new engineering center in Poland. The exact location is still flexible — any major Polish city is under consideration — but the goal is clear. This center will become the nucleus for a next-generation trading platform. And with that comes the need for strong leadership.

They are now looking for a Head of Engineering to lead this effort, someone with experience in building platforms in banking, crypto, or trading environments. What makes this role stand out is the opportunity it offers: the chance to build a center from the ground up, shape the team, and influence a global tech product from day one.

Meanwhile, one of the American companies is also hiring for a leadership role — a Director of Data Engineering & Analytics who will define their global data architecture and analytics strategy. These aren’t just back-office support roles; they’re strategic, business-critical positions. And they’re being placed in Poland.

$100K H-1B Fees: Why U.S. Firms Look to Central Europe for good reason.

Posted on by Marek Wróbel

The $100k Question in U.S. Immigration

Recent news about a White House proclamation introducing a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas has left the U.S. business community asking hard questions. While details are still being clarified, what’s clear is that the cost of bringing highly skilled talent into the U.S. through H-1B sponsorship could rise dramatically. And although the fee would be paid by the employer rather than the worker, it creates serious implications for hiring budgets.

The Rising Cost of On-Shore Talent

Employers already face significant costs when sponsoring H-1B workers legal fees, application fees, compliance obligations. Adding another $100,000 to the process could easily triple the effective cost
of onboarding a skilled foreign worker in the U.S. For many companies, this is no longer a strategic investment but a risk.

Beyond the financial burden, there’s also uncertainty. The legality of introducing such a large fee
by proclamation is expected to be challenged, and companies planning their workforce cannot build strategies on unpredictable policies.

Central Europe as a Talent Hub

Fortunately, there is another path. Central and Eastern Europe has become a powerhouse of IT talent. Poland alone is home to nearly 500,000 software engineers. Countries like Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Czechia, etc.have long been recognized for producing excellent developers, data engineers, AI/ML specialists, and network experts.

Many of these professionals already work for U.S. and Western European companies on a remote basis, with proven ability to integrate into international teams. Their technical quality is world-class, their rates are often 40–60% lower than U.S. equivalents, and English proficiency is high.

Case Studies:

U.S. Product Companies Choosing Warsaw This is not just a theoretical solution. In fact, several U.S.-based software product companies (not outsourcing firms) have already chosen to build their development teams in Warsaw, Poland over the past 1–2 years. Their reasoning was clear:

Severe shortages of skilled employees in the U.S.

High cost of “importing” talent through visas, even before the $100k fee threat.

Ability to establish stable, long-term offshore teams with lower cost and higher predictability.

For these companies, setting up in Central Europe was not only cheaper but also strategically safer.

Why Remote Beats Relocation Instead of paying $100,000 just for the right to bring a specialist into the U.S., companies can:

  • Hire remotely at competitive rates,
  • Save capital for product development and scaling,
  • Avoid immigration uncertainty, and
  • Build flexible, distributed teams that operate effectively across time zones.

With today’s collaboration tools and post-pandemic remote workflows, location matters far less than it did even five years ago. What matters is access to the right skills at the right time — and Central Europe delivers.

A Turning Point in Global Hiring

This visa policy may simply accelerate a trend already underway: the globalization of talent acquisition. U.S. companies no longer need to limit themselves to the domestic market or rely on costly immigration pathways. They can tap directly into international pools of expertise.

At Optiveum, we’ve already seen U.S. and global clients pivot to this model.

Whether it’s outsourcing AI engineers from Poland, building nearshore development teams, or filling niche roles like radar sensing engineers or SQL data experts for space missions, Central Europe has become the go-to alternative.

Conclusion While the $100,000 H-1B fee may still face legal and political debate, its signal is strong: traditional visa pathways for high-skilled workers are becoming more expensive and less predictable. For forward-looking companies, the smarter path may be to embrace remote hiring from Central Europe.

At Optiveum, we specialize in connecting U.S. employers with top IT talent from the region. If you’re considering your next hiring strategy, now is the time to explore this cost-effective, future-proof alternative.

If you’d like to get a free consultation to see whether the Central European option is potentially beneficial for your organization (including a free cost estimate of office space, labour cost, etc) just use this link here: Contact Form.