A dedicated development team in Ukraine gives you engineers who work only on your product, full time, while a local provider handles the recruiting, employment contracts, payroll, office space and day-to-day HR.
You set the roadmap and run the sprints. The provider keeps the team staffed, paid and supported. For companies that need steady engineering capacity for a year or longer, this model often sits between hiring in-house and handing a fixed-scope project to an agency.
Ukraine remains one of the deepest engineering markets in Europe, and many providers have spent more than a decade refining how they source, vet and retain Ukrainian developers for foreign clients. The firms below differ a lot in how they run the model. Some are pure outstaffing specialists that never touch your delivery. Others build a team, add a project manager and QA, and take responsibility for outcomes. A few offer a full offshore development center that you effectively own.
Every company on this list offers a dedicated team or dedicated developers model on its own website and has a real Ukrainian office or delivery center. We checked each company’s own site for its locations, team size and how its model works, and we left out figures the companies do not publish themselves. If you want a wider view of the market first, our guide to top software development companies in Ukraine covers full-cycle firms, and our list of top IT companies in Ukraine covers the broader services market.
Use the table for a quick comparison, then read the profiles for the details that matter when you hire dedicated developers in Ukraine: who recruits, who employs, who manages, how long it takes to start and what happens when someone leaves.
| Company | Location | Team Size | Best For |
| nCube | Kyiv | n/a | Client-led teams with ops fully outsourced |
| Vilmate | Kyiv (HQ) | 300+ | Long-tenure teams with low turnover |
| Relevant Software | Lviv | 100+ in-house | Paid trial before committing to a team |
| Zoolatech | Kyiv (HQ Miami) | n/a | Embedding engineers into an existing team |
| The Outstaff | Kyiv | n/a | Startups hiring individual developers fast |
| SPD Technology | Kyiv, Cherkasy | 600+ | Large, long-running engineering programs |
| TEAM International | Lviv, Kyiv | 1,000+ | Multi-country staffing with a Ukrainian base |
| Ralabs | Lviv (HQ Tallinn) | n/a | Autonomous teams that own the outcome |
| Lvivity | Ukraine (HQ Dallas) | n/a | Setting up an offshore development center |
| SPDLoad | Kharkiv | 70+ | SaaS products needing a standing team |
| GBKSOFT | Ukraine | 100+ | Picking developers from CVs |
| AgileEngine | Ukraine hub | n/a | Mixing Ukrainian and LATAM engineers |
nCube is about as close to a pure dedicated team specialist as this market gets. Founded in 2008, it builds remote engineering teams for product companies and lists development offices in Kyiv, Warsaw, São Paulo and London. Its engineers work full time under the client’s leadership, inside the client’s processes, tools and architecture. nCube sums up the split plainly on its site: “You own roadmap, we own ops.” That means nCube handles recruiting, HR partners, employee engagement and retention work, while you decide what gets built and how.
The hiring flow is laid out in detail. After a discovery call to define the team structure, nCube sends CVs for the client to review, the client approves each team member, and engineers onboard while nCube sets up the operational side. The company says teams launch in 2 to 4 weeks, with the team joining sprint cycles in the second month and reaching full delivery speed by the third. nCube reports an 86% retention rate over a project’s lifetime and an average partnership of more than five years, and says it has served 122 companies from 14 countries. It suits buyers with engineering leadership in place who want Ukrainian developers that feel like their own staff.
Vilmate is a Kyiv-headquartered software company with a second R&D center in Warsaw and more than 300 in-house tech professionals. It offers three engagement models, fixed price, time and material, and a dedicated team, which makes it a good option if you want to start with a scoped project and move to a standing team later. Its work spans e-commerce, healthcare, manufacturing and AI and ML solutions, mostly for US and EU clients, and it cites more than 150 delivered projects.
Under the dedicated team model, Vilmate assembles specialists matched to your stack and requirements and takes on recruitment, HR, payroll and operational support, while you keep full control over priorities. Teams can include engineers, QA specialists, tech leads and project managers. The company is specific about timing: “usually four to six weeks” from the first call to a team that is shipping, with an average hiring process of 15 days. Its retention figures are the standout. Vilmate reports 85% engineer retention, developers staying 8 to 10 years on average, and client engagements that average more than five years.
Relevant Software has been building custom software since 2013 and runs its delivery from an office in Lviv, with further offices in Warsaw and Valencia. It describes a mix of more than 100 in-house experts and a network of pre-vetted professionals, with PMP-certified project managers available to lead engagements. Its industry list is broad, covering healthcare, fintech, energy, insurance, logistics and more, and its technical depth includes AI, data engineering, IoT and legacy modernization.
What sets its dedicated team offer apart is a clear, six-stage hiring process that ends with a paid trial. Relevant Software runs an initial consultation, selects candidates from its talent pool, screens them with a technical test, live coding, soft skills, culture fit and English checks, and then puts finalists in front of the client for interviews. Approved engineers start with a paid trial period on real tasks, with flexible notice terms, before full onboarding. The company handles recruitment, vetting, payroll and HR, and team leads provide structured status updates and shared dashboards. It reports an 80%+ retention rate. It suits buyers who want to see real output before locking in a team.
Zoolatech is headquartered in Miami and runs a development center in Kyiv, alongside locations in Warsaw, Guadalajara and Istanbul. It offers two models that fit this list: team extension, where individual engineers join your existing structure, and an offshore delivery center, where Zoolatech builds and runs a longer-term engineering team for you. The company says it has delivered more than 300 modernization, AI and cloud-native projects and works with more than 100 clients.
Its team extension page is one of the most transparent in the market. Engineers follow your workflow and get access to your tools from day one, while Zoolatech covers HR, legal, onboarding and equipment. The process runs from a requirements call and NDA, through sourcing and a seven-stage internal screening, to your own interview and final hiring decision, then onboarding coordinated by a dedicated Delivery Manager. A People Partner monitors stability after the team starts. Zoolatech puts the timeline at approximately 30 days from requirements call to sprint start, reports a 98% retention rate across multi-year engagements and says 60% of its placements are senior engineers with five or more years of experience. It is a strong fit when you already have a working engineering team and need to add Ukrainian developers without changing how you run delivery.
The Outstaff is a Ukrainian outstaffing provider that helps startups scale development teams with handpicked remote engineers. It offers four formats: an individual talent, a dedicated team, a delivery team and a custom development team, so you can start with one developer and grow into a full team with the same provider. The company says its database covers more than 3,000 vetted tech talents across most popular stacks, and it promises the first CV within 24 hours of a request.
The model is built to take the local employment burden off the client entirely. The Outstaff says it covers “all of your local accounting, legal and HR tasks” and takes care of all expenses related to hiring, onboarding, payroll and management, with all fees included in the monthly compensation. It also runs its own premium coworking space in Kyiv, equipped to host client teams, which gives your developers a proper office instead of working from home by default. The Outstaff is best for founders and small product teams that want Ukrainian developers who report to them directly, fast, without a heavy managed-service layer on top.
SPD Technology is one of the larger engineering firms on this list, with a London head office, Ukrainian offices in Kyiv and Cherkasy, and further locations in Larnaca and Bucharest. It says it has a 600+ team of developers and an in-house recruiting department to support scaling, and it points to 20 years of building software. Its dedicated development team service sits within its tech talent augmentation offer, and the company describes these teams as an extension of the partner’s company built for long-term work.
The management structure is more layered than at a pure outstaffing firm. SPD Technology describes project managers who track progress, delivery directors who coordinate across teams, people managers who handle each engineer’s development and team culture, and tech leads who take part in architecture decisions. Each engineer works to a personal development plan, and teams combine Scrum with Extreme Programming practices. The company notes that some clients have worked with it for more than 12 years. SPD Technology suits companies running large or technically demanding programs that want a dedicated team with its own internal management and growth path, not just a bench of individual contractors.
TEAM International is a Florida-headquartered firm that has operated in Ukraine for more than a decade, opening its Lviv office in 2014 and its Kyiv office in 2018. It also runs locations in Colombia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Argentina and the Philippines, and reports more than 1,000 employees globally. For buyers who want Ukrainian engineers today but may add nearshore capacity in Latin America later, that footprint means one contract and one vendor across both regions.
Its engineering staffing service lists rapidly scalable dedicated engineering teams alongside project-based staffing, individual hiring and role-specific headhunting. TEAM International handles full administrative support, including HR, payroll and compliance, and says it maintains more than 4,000 pre-vetted candidates, a team of more than 30 talent management experts and ISO/IEC 27001 certification. TEAM International is a sensible choice for larger buyers that value compliance, security certification and multi-country options more than the boutique feel of a smaller Ukrainian provider.
Ralabs is headquartered in Tallinn and runs an office in Lviv, with further locations in Delaware, Madrid, Brussels and Lisbon. Operating since 2016, it works across custom software, AI and ML, cloud architecture and data engineering, mainly for healthcare, fintech, media and enterprise clients. It cites more than 150 delivered projects and more than 60 clients.
Its dedicated team offer leans toward the managed end of the spectrum. Ralabs describes it as “a fully autonomous team that owns the outcome,” with senior engineers, a project manager and automated QA included. You share requirements, and Ralabs selects people for technical fit, expertise and culture, using a four-step process that runs from consultation through technical assessment and code evaluation to final confirmation. The company handles recruitment, so you hire a whole team instead of building one role by role, and it quotes two weeks to a proof of concept. Pricing depends on scale, complexity, team size and stack. Ralabs is a good fit for companies that do not have a strong in-house engineering manager and want a dedicated team that brings its own delivery leadership.
Lvivity is a full-cycle software development company with a US head office in Dallas and a software development center in Ukraine. Alongside dedicated teams and team extension, it offers something most providers here do not highlight: setting up an offshore development center that the client effectively owns. Its site states that “the occupancy and control of the ODC are in full scale yours,” while Lvivity handles the infrastructure around it.
For the offshore center, Lvivity uses its recruitment consultants and HR specialists to assemble the team, finds and manages office workspace, and runs personnel, payroll, taxes and other back-office tasks. A dedicated manager stays in contact with the client and works on the relationship between the client and the offshore developers. For a standard dedicated team, the company describes a six-stage selection process covering discovery, candidate search, screening, HR interview, technical interview and a final interview, taking 2 to 4 weeks, with transparent monthly payments based on the team structure. Its stack coverage includes .NET, Python, React and Flutter across fintech, healthcare and e-commerce. Lvivity suits companies that want a long-term Ukrainian engineering presence that functions like their own office.
SPDLoad is a product development company with an office in Kharkiv and a US office in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has more than 13 years of experience building software, with a particular focus on SaaS, and lists more than 70 senior software and product experts and more than 100 software products launched. It works with both startups and enterprises across healthcare, fintech and e-learning.
SPDLoad’s version of the dedicated development team model is closer to a managed team than to pure outstaffing. The company describes it as “a long-term team that works as part of your organization,” where SPDLoad takes responsibility for delivery, quality and ongoing improvement while staying aligned with your roadmap. That makes it a practical option for founders and product owners who need a standing team for a SaaS product but do not want to manage each developer individually. SPDLoad reports an average client lifetime of three years, which fits the long-horizon nature of the model.
GBKSOFT is a Ukraine-based web and mobile development company with more than 100 people on its team, serving mainly US clients. Its industry experience covers fintech, education, business intelligence, social networks, marketing, fitness, healthcare and HR tech. Besides full project development, it offers a discovery stage, MVP builds, outstaffing, audits and consulting, which gives buyers several ways to start before settling on a dedicated arrangement.
Its dedicated offer is simple and hands-on for the client. You can hire dedicated developers or a full team to speed up development, scale your own team, or cover work your staff has no experience with. The process starts with a request, after which GBKSOFT sends CVs that match your project, and you pick the people. GBKSOFT is a good match for companies that want to review specific developer profiles, pay for exactly the roles they need and keep direct control over the work, without a large managed layer.
AgileEngine is a larger engineering firm that operates more than 15 talent hubs across three continents. Ukraine is one of its European hubs, alongside Poland, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Slovakia, and it also recruits in the US, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala and India. For buyers who want some Ukrainian developers in the mix but also need time zone coverage in the Americas, that spread is the main draw.
AgileEngine offers two ways to work: scale your own engineering team with remote professionals, or hand product and feature delivery to AgileEngine. Its site pitches “top-1% remote experts and dedicated teams” and emphasizes AI-assisted engineering, claiming 30 to 70% higher productivity from AI augmentation. It also reports that 98% of clients stay after the trial project, which signals that a trial engagement is a normal first step. Buyers who want an all-Ukrainian team should say so up front. AgileEngine suits companies that value a single vendor across several regions more than a provider built entirely around Ukrainian engineering.
This is the first decision, and it shapes everything else. In a fixed-scope project, you agree on requirements, a timeline and a price, and the vendor is responsible for delivering that scope. It works well when the product is well defined, the budget is fixed and you do not expect the requirements to change much. The trade-off is rigidity: every change becomes a change request, and the team usually disbands when the project ends.
In the dedicated team model, you pay a monthly fee for specific people who work only on your product. There is no fixed scope. You set priorities each sprint, the roadmap can change freely, and the team builds up product knowledge over time. The provider recruits, employs and supports the engineers, and you direct the work. It is the better fit for ongoing product development, long roadmaps and companies that want engineers who behave like staff. Several providers above offer both, so you can start scoped and convert later.
Providers split into two camps. Outstaffing specialists supply engineers who report to you, follow your processes and use your tools, while the vendor stays in the background handling HR and payroll. Managed dedicated teams come with a project manager, tech lead or QA, and the vendor takes some responsibility for delivery. If you have a strong engineering manager or CTO, the first approach gives you more control at lower overhead. If you do not, pay for the management layer. Ask each vendor exactly which roles are included in the monthly fee and who is accountable when a sprint goal slips.
Published timelines range from the first CV within a day to four to six weeks until a team is shipping. Those numbers measure different things, so compare like with like. Ask when you will see the first shortlist, how many interview rounds you will run, how long a notice period the chosen engineers need to serve at their current job, and when the first sprint realistically begins. A provider that gives you a specific, staged plan is usually more reliable than one that promises speed without detail.
Turnover is the biggest hidden cost of any dedicated team, because every departure takes product knowledge with it. Ask for the provider’s retention rate, average engineer tenure and how it defines both. Then ask about replacement terms: how quickly a replacement is found, whether there is an overlap period for handover, and whether you pay during the gap. Providers that assign HR partners or people managers to each engineer, and that invest in career plans, tend to keep people longer. For a comparison with other staffing models, see our list of top IT staff augmentation companies.
A dedicated team rate usually bundles the engineer’s salary, taxes, benefits, equipment, office space and the vendor’s margin. Some providers quote a single all-in monthly fee per person. Others separate out management, recruiting or setup fees. Ask for a line-by-line breakdown, confirm who pays for software licenses and hardware, and check whether rates are fixed for a period or reviewed annually. Compare the total monthly cost of the full team, not a headline hourly rate.
Ask every provider about its business continuity plan: where engineers work from, what backup arrangements exist for offices and connectivity, and whether the company has locations outside Ukraine that can absorb work if needed. Many firms above run offices in Poland, Estonia or elsewhere in the EU next to their Ukrainian teams. On security, check for ISO/IEC 27001 or similar certification, how access to your systems is controlled, and who owns the IP created by the team. The contract should assign all code and work product to you and include clear NDA terms.
Ukraine offers a large senior talent pool and a long outsourcing track record, but it is worth benchmarking against its neighbors before you sign. Our comparison of Poland vs Ukraine vs Romania for nearshore development covers rates, talent depth and time zones. Some of the providers here can staff teams across several countries, which lets you combine Ukrainian dedicated developers with engineers from other hubs under one contract.
Choosing a dedicated development team in Ukraine comes down to how much of the work you want to own. If you have engineering leadership and want Ukrainian developers who act like your own staff, an outstaffing-style provider that handles HR, payroll and retention in the background will give you the most control. If you need the vendor to bring project management and QA and share responsibility for delivery, a managed dedicated team is the safer choice. Either way, the best partners are specific about hiring timelines, retention, what the monthly rate includes and who owns the code.
Shortlist two or three providers whose model matches how you work, interview the actual engineers they propose, and start with a trial period or a small first team before you scale. Ukrainian dedicated developers can become a long-term part of your product organization when the model, the management split and the contract terms are clear from day one.
If you want to feature your company on this list, email us or submit a form in the Top Choices section. After a thorough assessment, we’ll decide whether it’s a valuable addition.