Sergey Bruy: "To say that the majority of IT personnel will leave Belarus is nonsense. Maximum 20-30 thousand people"

Since the beginning of the protests, about 1,200 IT specialists have moved from Belarus to Ukraine. Another 800 left for Poland. And this flow is growing. Sergey Bruy, co-founder and managing director of the Belarusian Vizor Games, believes that “the picture is sad“, but additional challenges can benefit Belarusians.

Sergey wrote about this in his Facebook. Below are the main theses of his voluminous post.

Sergey BruySergey believes that Belarusian IT is the strongest in terms of maturity/potential/focus in the post—Soviet space.

• Business is really taking people out now. First of all, we are talking about “personnel critical for project management, tops and leads, as well as people from the risk group on the material and legal part and those who are very afraid / have wanted for a long time.”
• The number of departed Bruy does not consider very large. He writes that the main problem is the quality of the specialists who left the country. The personnel critical for the projects are the best specialists of the Belarusian industry.
• They won’t take everyone out. Under the current conditions (crisis in the country, closed borders, pandemic) — it is very difficult and very long. And not everyone is ready to leave the “inhabited places”. Within the next two years, a maximum of 20 to 30 thousand IT specialists will leave the country.
• This will lead to a maximum subsidence of the local IT industry by a third. At the same time, a slight increase is not excluded if it “vacuums up departments suitable according to the charter from all sectors.”
• Because of this, in the near future, the IT industry will not be able to be responsible for 15-20% of Belarus’ GDP. Before the crisis and the subsequent migration of specialists, the sector had such potential. But now, on the contrary, it will roll back 10 years.
• Another problem: if successful, the remaining companies, despite the conditions created by the Hi-Tech Park (HTP), will also prefer to “pack their bags”.
• As for companies, the main problem for them is the loss of time due to relocations.
• For the industry professionals themselves, everything can turn out in a positive light. Belarusians, according to Sergey, will be able to prove their competence in new places for themselves, to demonstrate that their success was not accidental.
• Bruy also noted that “It will become a little easier for young people to breathe in the Minsk sector, responsibility and knowledge will move faster to active/initiative ones.”
• However, he generally notes that the main tragedy of the current Belarusian IT is not that it is losing people and companies, but that the potential it had has been destroyed.

In the comments under the post of the co-founder of Vizor Games, several discussions broke out at once. Some of the speakers agreed with Sergey.

For example, the founder of the Belarusian service Fibery.io Mikhail Dubakov also said that the Belarusian IT is waiting for a rollback. Only, in his opinion, not for 10, but for 20 years, when local specialists and companies were engaged exclusively in outsourcing.

Sergey Lobko-Lobanovsky, CEO of the Adopler/Geomotiv Group of companies, agrees that the Belarusian market had a huge potential. In two years, the revenue of its outsourcing business has grown 10 times. In 2020, he attracted a round of investments. I wanted to bring the product to HTP, but in the current situation, he will not do so.

Dmitry Pinchuk, Vice president of Marketing at Socialpoint, a Minsk resident, also notes in the comments that due to the crisis in the country, Belarusian entrepreneurs as a whole began to behave differently: “The tops of Minsk IT companies until 2020 thought along the lines of “how to develop and grow a movement locally. Go go go”. Now, I’m sure they are thinking in the style of “how to minimize risks”. Logic in the spirit of minimization of risks does not contribute to growth.”

There were also those who disagreed with Sergey’s opinion. What’s funny is that they are all from Russia.

For example, a former art director Mail.ru Group Alexey Vlasov said that the problem expressed by Bruy is relevant only for owners and top companies. It does not concern employees, even key ones.

The head of production at Uni-Bit Studio Inc, Yevgeny Ovchinnikov, noted that those who are leaving Belarus now would have left sooner or later anyway in search of comfort and other opportunities.

In response to the last comment, Sergey said that this was not the case. Many people were not going to engage in a relaunch, but in the new conditions they had to. He cited himself as an example. However, where and how long he has been moving Vizor Games, Bruy did not specify.

***

The figures indicated at the beginning of the material on the number of IT specialists who moved to Ukraine in an interview with Deutsche Welle were announced by Alexander Bornyakov, Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation of Ukraine. He also said that negotiations are underway with 15 companies to launch representative offices in the country.

This became known after Ukraine:

• in August, it expanded quotas for the admission of highly qualified IT specialists from abroad;
• significantly facilitated the conditions of admission and entry to work for IT specialists from Belarus.

Before that, the Polish government launched a large-scale program to relocate entire IT companies from the republic. Within its framework, they promise to: help with the registration of a business, transfer employees and their families, find offices and living space.

All this is a response to the ongoing state crisis in the country since August. Many people in the country do not publicly recognize the results of the presidential elections, according to which Alexander Lukashenko became the head of state again. The situation is aggravated by the brutal repression that has become a response to mass peaceful rallies and protests.

Also on the topic:

• Belarusian game developers on the situation in the country: “It’s scary here, very scary”Viktor Kislyi: “Now a plan is being formed for the possible relocation of employees”
• Polish authorities have launched a program of relocation of IT companies from Belarus
• Is there any news?