As a software development organization with a Delivery Center in Ukraine, we created our contingency plan long before the invasion. Prompted by US and EU intelligence reports and satellite pictures of more than 100,000 Russian troops building up along the Russian-Ukrainian border, our senior leadership focused on ensuring the safety of our 90 plus Ukraine-based IT consultants. Our contingency plan consisted of the two phases and was to be put into action in case of the situation’s escalation:

1. Relocate all employees and their families to Lviv – a city in Western Ukraine close to the Polish border with a well-developed IT infrastructure.
2. Relocate all employees and their families from Lviv to Krakow in Poland.

As the war broke out, on the same day, we arranged evacuation buses for all our consultants living in high-risk areas, including Kyiv. Due to personal reasons, not all employees agreed or managed to be evacuated. Yet, the majority did. However, because all city exits were jammed with thousands of cars fleeing away, the trip to the Western border took more than 30 hours instead of just 6-7 hours it typically takes. While the buses were on their way, martial law was implemented, banning all males aged 18-60 from leaving the country. 

As such, all our male colleagues got off in Lviv, and our female employees proceeded to the border and left the country for Poland. Some of our guys stayed in Lviv (inundated with refugees from other parts of the country), while others disseminated all over Western Ukraine and settled down there for the time being. Four of our colleagues with military backgrounds were enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Currently we have 14 colleagues who are relocated and working outside Ukraine.

Apart from this, most of our Ukrainian team continues working to ensure the high quality and timeliness of their project deliveries. 

Even those colleagues who are still in high-risk areas literally continue working under the bombs and providing their service to customers despite disruptions such as regular air raid sirens, having to work from bomb shelters, sounds of gunfire, explosions, and so on. That’s a new reality they’re getting used to as there’s no alternative for now.

Some of our colleagues now combine their full-time job with volunteering, fighting on the cyber front , or serving in territorial defense units – armed squads fighting against hostile infiltrators and reconnaissance, guarding checkpoints, etc.