Ekaterinburg

Ekaterinburg is the largest city in the Urals. Economically, the Urals (and Western Siberia) is rich in natural resources, and is a center of industry. Because of high concentration of defense plants and factories, most of the Urals was closed to foreigners for decades. In early 1990’s, the Russian Federation opened the area to foreigners. As a result, today Ekaterinburg attracts an increasing amount of foreign investment, primarily from the U.S., UK and Germany, with more than 70 leading international companies having opened their representative offices here.

Although the Urals' largest industries are still machine building and metallurgy, software development industry sector has grown remarkably in the recent years. The several dozen companies operating in the city are mostly domestically oriented, with some of them focusing narrowly on offshore software development for international clientele (USA, Europe, Israel). The average staff of an offshore outsourcing provider is 20 employees.

The main HR potential for software development companies is concentrated in R&D organization: Ekaterinburg is home to more than 100 research institutions employing 50,000 people, operating under the auspices of the Urals Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.