Ukraine is a popular country for Aussie start-ups to find software engineering talent and data scientists. Now they’re trying to support their staff through a war.
Australian CEOs with staff in the Ukraine are offering to investigate Australian visas for them, advancing employee pay and making attempts to get them out of the besieged country.
Ms Daisley said she had spoken to her team there and offered to lend any support she could, but largely felt helpless.The invasion caught her team by surprise, with staff not believing Russia would attack their city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest. “At no fault of their own, they’re out of work,” he said. “It’s a terrible situation, they’re not pro-war. They’re just user experience designers who have been pushed into a corner.”
Mr Shaw, who is based out of the Southern Highlands in NSW, hires the developers through a Ukrainian employment agency called Onyx Systems, which connects local workers with tech companies around the world. “I talk with my family daily, I would say every few hours. They are in underground bunkers, and all they are asking me every time is: ‘Will anyone come and save us? We just want to live’.“Outside the tech sector, local companies spanning industries such as travel and media have staff that have also been affected by the war in Ukraine.