SoftServe announced the hiring of approximately 100 specialists in Robotics & Advanced Automation. Some of the positions are in Ukraine. At first glance, this is a corporate announcement about growth. In reality, it's a symptom of a structural shift in what large industrial clients are ordering.
Why Right Now
The direction's director Liubomyr Demkiv explains the specific demand:
«For one of our clients, we developed a solution that reduced the simulation time of a production line from several hours to five minutes per cycle».
— Liubomyr Demkiv, Director of Robotics & Advanced Automation, SoftServe
This is not marketing — it's an explanation of why companies pay for automation: not to replace people in the abstract, but to reduce the time from design to launch of actual equipment.
According to Gartner's forecast, by 2028, five of the ten leading AI vendors will have products in the Physical AI category, and 80% of warehouses will use robots or automation. SoftServe is already an official NVIDIA partner in this direction — including through the integration of digital twin technologies and Isaac Sim simulations.
The Shortage That Makes Hiring Difficult
The problem is that such specialists are globally scarce. According to labor market data, demand for AI/ML engineers in Ukraine has grown by 88% year-over-year — and robotics brings even narrower specialization: knowledge of ROS, computer vision, reinforcement learning, and industrial protocols simultaneously. SoftServe is looking mainly for senior level and above, but is also open to middle and junior — which in itself is a signal: the company is ready to grow talent, not just poach it.
Ukraine as Part of a Global Pipeline
The fact that part of the hiring is taking place in Ukraine during a full-scale invasion is neither charity nor PR. It's pragmatism: Ukrainian engineers are cheaper than their American counterparts (average robotics engineer salary in the USA is $85,000–100,000 per year), have a strong technical foundation, and are already integrated into western-facing projects. According to market estimates, western-facing roles give Ukrainian developers 40–80% more than the domestic market.
- What they're looking for: ROS/ROS2 engineers, ML for robotics, computer vision, digital twins, industrial automation
- Level: mostly senior+, but there are middle and junior positions
- Geography: globally, including Ukraine
- Partnership base: NVIDIA, Wandelbots — for simulations and flexible manufacturing robotics
The global robotics market is expected to grow to over $200 billion by 2030 — and a shortage of qualified personnel is already one of the factors holding back this growth.
If SoftServe closes these 100 positions within the stated «coming months» — it will be evidence that Ukraine is capable of forming global teams in deep tech even during wartime. If not — the question goes to the entire industry: where to train roboticists, a profession that did not exist as a mass specialty until yesterday?
