If you hire Ukrainian developers through a Swedish company, your contract, your data processing agreement and your point of accountability are all Swedish, while the engineers themselves work from Ukraine, one hour ahead of Stockholm. That setup removes most of the legal friction of working with a foreign supplier, but not all of it: because Ukraine has no EU adequacy decision, any access to personal data still needs Standard Contractual Clauses, and continuity deserves a straight answer rather than a slogan. Through our staff augmentation service, engineers cost from €45 an hour (mid-level) and €60 an hour (senior).
We should say up front that we’re one of these companies. Smoother Development AB is a Swedish limited company, our engineering team works from Ukraine, and a founder is accountable for every project. Read the rest with that in mind; the checklist at the end applies to any partner, including us.
Why do Nordic companies hire developers in Ukraine?
Mainly for the combination of a deep engineering talent pool, lower cost than in the Nordics and a working day that lines up with yours. Ukraine’s IT industry is large and export-driven: IT services exports were about $6.66 billion in 2025 according to the Lviv IT Cluster, up 3.3% on the year before.
This is a form of nearshore development: working with engineers in a nearby country with a small time difference, as opposed to offshore teams many hours away. We compare the two in nearshore vs offshore development.
What you take on is a country at war. That’s why the contract, the data protection paperwork and continuity matter more here than with a supplier down the road.
What does the model actually look like?
There are three common ways to work with engineers in Ukraine, and the differences are mostly about who carries the risk.
| Freelancer in Ukraine, direct | Ukrainian company, direct | EU company with a team in Ukraine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who you sign with | An individual, usually a sole proprietor (FOP) | A Ukrainian company | An EU company, for example a Swedish AB |
| Governing law | Negotiable, but enforcing a claim against an individual abroad is slow | Often Ukrainian law, or negotiated | Usually the company’s home country, for example Swedish law |
| GDPR transfer paperwork | You sign the SCCs and assess the transfer yourself | You sign the SCCs with the company | The provider’s DPA includes SCCs for its team; you still review it |
| IP assignment | Directly from the individual to you, if written down | Engineer to company to you | Engineer to provider to you |
| If someone becomes unavailable | You find a replacement | The company replaces them | The company replaces them |
| Invoicing | Foreign invoice, often in USD or EUR | Foreign invoice | Domestic or EU invoice, VAT handled as usual |
| Price level | Lowest | Middle | Highest of the three |
A FOP (fizychna osoba-pidpryiemets) is a Ukrainian sole proprietor and the most common way individual developers invoice foreign clients. Many Ukrainian IT companies also engage their engineers as FOPs rather than employees, which is fine, but it makes the IP chain something to check rather than assume.
What do you sign with a Swedish company?
With us, the contract is with Smoother Development AB (org. no. 559526-3350) under Swedish law, and it is invoiced by the Swedish company. Our engineers in Ukraine are bound by confidentiality and IP-assignment terms in their agreements with us. You own the code, designs and documentation once the related invoice is paid, which is written into the contract, and when the engagement ends you get everything: repositories, infrastructure code, credentials and documentation. We sign your NDA, or ours, before you share confidential details.
For your procurement and finance teams, that means a supplier they can check in the Swedish company register, a contract under familiar law, and an invoice that looks like any other.
Is it GDPR-compliant to let developers in Ukraine access your data?
Yes, if it’s set up properly. The legal starting point is that the European Commission has not adopted an adequacy decision for Ukraine; you can check the current list of adequacy decisions. The European Data Protection Board treats remote access from a third country as a transfer, even when the data stays on servers in the EU (EDPB Recommendations 01/2020). So if an engineer in Ukraine can see personal data in your systems, that access needs a transfer tool.
In practice that tool is the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs): pre-approved contract terms that bind the recipient to EU-level protection. The EDPB also expects the exporter to assess whether anything in the destination country undermines those clauses, and to add supplementary measures where needed.
How we handle it:
- A data processing agreement (personuppgiftsbiträdesavtal) is signed before anyone needs access to personal data, with the SCCs covering access from Ukraine.
- We design for data minimization: development and testing use anonymized or synthetic data wherever possible, and engineers often don’t need access to production personal data at all. That is the strongest safeguard, because data that isn’t accessed isn’t transferred.
- We deploy to EU cloud regions by default, preferably in your own cloud account.
- We keep a list of the sub-processors on your project and tell you before adding one.
The details are on our security and data protection page, and we’re happy to answer your security questionnaire or meet your IT, security or data protection officer before you sign.
How much do the time zones overlap?
Almost completely. Ukraine is on Eastern European Time and Sweden on Central European Time, and both change their clocks on the same nights in March and October, so Kyiv is one hour ahead of Stockholm all year. A 9:00 standup in Stockholm is 10:00 in Kyiv, and a Stockholm working day of 9:00–17:00 sits entirely inside a Kyiv day of 10:00–18:00.
One footnote: Ukraine’s parliament passed a bill in 2024 to stop switching to summer time, but it has not been signed into law. If it ever is, the two countries would share the same clock in summer.
What about power outages and continuity?
This is the question every Nordic buyer should ask, and the honest answer has two parts. Since 2022, attacks on Ukraine’s energy system have caused planned and emergency power cuts, particularly in winter. Teams that have kept delivering through this have done it with backup power, backup connections and a way of working that doesn’t depend on any single person or location being online.
What we do:
- Our team has worked through power and connectivity disruption since 2022, with backup power and connections, and we plan delivery so a short outage doesn’t move a milestone.
- Every project has a second engineer who knows the codebase, so one person being unavailable doesn’t stop delivery.
- Code is pushed to a repository you can access at all times, infrastructure is defined as code, and we keep a runbook for anything we operate.
The second and third points matter as much as the generators. They also protect you against the ordinary risks of any team: illness, resignations, a key person on holiday.
How does the cost compare with hiring in Sweden?
Here the honest answer is less flattering than most sales pages. Against Swedish consultants the difference is large. Against a Swedish employee who is fully used, the hourly difference is small, and the real gains are speed and flexibility.
| Employee in Sweden | Swedish IT consultant | Engineer in Ukraine via a Swedish company (our rates) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | About 77,000 kr a month all-in (≈ €7,000), roughly €49 per hour actually worked | About 830–870 kr an hour (≈ €75–79) | From €45 an hour mid-level, €60 senior; ≈ €7,200–9,600 a month full-time |
| Basis | Average salary of 55,500 kr (SCB, software and system developers) + 31.42% employer contributions + about 4,000 kr occupational pension, over ~1,700 working hours a year | Average asking rates for developer roles in 2025 (Brainville) | Published prices, excluding VAT |
| Not included | Office, equipment, recruitment, management time | Your own management time | Your own management time |
| Time to start | Months, including the candidate’s notice period | Usually weeks | 1–2 weeks |
| Commitment | Permanent employment | Per assignment | Monthly, after a two-week fit period |
The SCB figure is an average across all levels; senior developers in Stockholm earn more. If you need someone permanently for years and can hire well, employing is a strong option. If you need capacity now, for a defined stretch, or a skill you can’t find locally, an engineer through a Swedish company is usually cheaper than a consultant and much faster than a hire. Our staff augmentation pricing guide breaks down rates by seniority and engagement model.
How do you evaluate any Ukrainian development partner?
Ask these questions of every partner you consider, including us.
| Question | A good answer | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Who exactly do we sign with, under which law? | A named legal entity, the governing law stated, a named person accountable | Contracts with individuals you’ve never met, or an entity in another country nobody mentioned |
| How is personal data covered? | A DPA with SCCs signed before anyone touches personal data, a sub-processor list, a clear view of what data engineers actually need | ”We’re GDPR compliant” with no paperwork, or production data copied to laptops |
| Who owns the code, and when? | Written IP assignment from each engineer to the provider and from the provider to you | Rights that stay with individual developers, or “we’ll transfer it at the end” |
| Where does the code live? | In your repository from day one | In the provider’s private repository, handed over later |
| What if an engineer is unavailable tomorrow, through illness, resignation or call-up? | A second engineer who knows the codebase, plus documentation and a runbook | ”That won’t happen” |
| How do you handle power and connectivity outages? | Backup power and connections, delivery planned around outages, and a concrete account of the last one | A vague answer, or none |
| Who reviews the code? | A named senior engineer reviews every change | Nobody, or “you review it” |
| Can we see who we get before we start? | Level, experience and past projects shared up front, with a trial period | CVs that change after signing |
| How is access controlled? | Named accounts, multi-factor authentication, least privilege, access removed when someone leaves | Shared logins, secrets in the repository |
| Can we talk to a current client? | Yes, ideally one in your country or industry | Only logos on a slide |
What to do next
If you’re comparing partners, run the checklist above on all of them, us included. If you’d like to talk to us, our staff augmentation starts from €45 an hour for mid-level and €60 an hour for senior engineers, excluding VAT. You see each engineer’s level and experience before they start, the first two weeks work as a fit period (if it isn’t the right fit, we replace the engineer at no cost, or you stop and don’t pay for those two weeks), and your IT or data protection officer is welcome to question us before you sign.
