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Lviv is in the western Ukraine, they don't like russians there 8)

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I'll be going there too... Right now, all I can say in Ukrainian is Дякую! (Thanks!)... Can you recommend any other Ukrainian phrases for me?

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avoider.livejournal.com

"We'll deal with this later." doesn't sound pleasantly at all for me

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kruto-popadalov.livejournal.com

Ukrainian man - Хохол

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Nope, sorry. I'm russian. There are people who speak russian and understand ukrainian easily - but I don't 8) Must be some sort of linguistic dumbness 8)

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Russian man - Москаль 8)

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One more joke like this, and you will be banned from this community forever.

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Does he say "We'll deal with this later." about his own salary? And did I understand correctly that your friend is his manager-to-be? This is really strange.

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kruto-popadalov.livejournal.com

Ukrainian man (variant) - Салоед

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P.S. How can you hire someone without agreeing on the price? Would you say "I have already bought the house, just haven't discussed the price with the seller yet"? This sounds really weird.

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OK, you asked for that.

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It's variant for russian language, not ukrainian. 8)

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He said something along the lines of "We can talk about the money later."

I agree that it's strange. I just talked to a colleague here about the whole thing and she thinks that the Ukrainian may hold the work hostage and demand a huge payment unless the matter is not settled immediately. I don't have all the details; this friend called me from the East Coast this afternoon and left a voice mail asking me to find out. I work with Ukrainians (I have e-mailed them, but I'm not sure when they'll respond), but they are not engineers or computer programmers, so they may not know...

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I don't understand it either, but that's what he did. It's contract work, so it's short term...

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constpd.livejournal.com

I'd advise to finish with this “We'll deal with this later” thing. The employer may estimate that hence your friend does not know ukrainian business-culture he will hesitate to ask again and again. In fact, it is NOT normal “even in Ukraine” not to tell the salary to the future employee. The Ukrainian IT market currently suffers insufficient number of skilled specialists, so if this situation appeared for example during an interview with an experienced local candidate, the candidate would probably say “good-bye” an once.
As for Ukraine “they don't like russians there” is mostly a stereotype. Sure there are people who really don't but most of the people do not care whether you are russian or ukrainian and which language you speak. And certainly, noone will be offended that a foreigner learnt Russian, not Ukrainian.

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Thanks, I'll pass this onto my friend... Do you have any idea what the range of salaries are for computer programmers in Lviv?

Also, thanks for the tip about using Russian with Ukrainians. I was getting worried. :)

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constpd.livejournal.com

I do not know about hourly salaries at all and not in Lviv. In Kyiv an experienced programmer may be payed $800–$2000 per month. Generally, in Ukraine the word “salary” usually implies “monthly salary” because that's a single common period of payment.

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Ok, thanks... Is Lviv less expensive or as expensive as Kiev?

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constpd.livejournal.com

A little less expensive generelly and about 1.5 times less expensive when it comes to realty or rent.

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thanks.

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alon_68

The salary question agreed in the written form is the essential for the whole business, imho. IN NO CASE I'd agree to make business with people tending to postpone such issue. I'd also recommend to anybody who wants to work with the former USSR to be very suspicious and not too optimistic when they think about ethics level of their partners. Unfortunately, the decades of the anti-market Communist regime influenced very badly to all this and 16 years is not enough to change it radically. The "cultural view on money" in Ukraine as well as in other republics may include possibility simply to rob a naive foreigner looking dummy enough.

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russian-bob.livejournal.com

Contract work without contract?

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awelon.livejournal.com

Regarding your question about general Ukrainian information - I'm Canadian and I spent 6 weeks in Ukraine in May/June 2005. I was based in Kyiv, but also went to Crimea for a week. I spent one day in Lviv, but was in kind of a daze and don't remember much, unfortunately. If you have any general questions, you can email me at taryn@uvic.ca. If you do email me, put "Ukraine" or something in the subject line, as I get a lot of spam and tend to skip over things from people I don't know! :-)

I hope you have a good time while you are there! I certainly enjoyed myself, and will be going back this July.

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My understanding was that it was an "informal agreement." It sounds completely messed-up, yes, and I don't really know the rest of the details. I was just asked to find out what the average hourly pay would be for a computer programmer in Lviv...

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You make some good points. I think that this guy is trying to get a figure asap, so that he isn't totally robbed... He's actually the son of a colleague, who works on the East Coast. She called me this afternoon at work, asking for my help/advice. I referred to him as a friend in this post for the sake of simplicity. I don't know anything more about this guy's business dealings.

A few years ago, working in the South Caucasus, I met some people who had some very interesting views of money and foreigners in their country...

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msk01.livejournal.com

"Computer programmer" is too wide term. It highly depends on the type of job which he's going to do. So, the salary of "computer programmers" may differ in 2-5 times.

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You are right. This is all the info I have on this:

He lives in L'viv. He's about 30 yo. His job title would be Electical Engineer. Salary level would be on par with a computer programmer (specifically one who works with more challenging programming languages like C, C++, or Java).

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Thanks! I'll definitely follow-up with you via e-mail! I have loads of questions. :)

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msk01.livejournal.com

And this is absolutely not enough. Maybe he's the one who can do this job in whole Ukraine, maybe he's going to be a regular engineer with low qualification. Maybe he has a bunch of certificates from the major companies like Oracle, maybe not. Maybe he's going to work for the major international company, maybe for a small local, but perspective firm. Maybe he's going to support English-speaking customers and nobody except him are able do it, maybe not. It depends. He should talk to someone in Lviv, who know something about him, his skills and his speciality, and know the salaries in this industry.

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alon_68

Oh, you've been in the South Caucasus! Have you been in Georgia? I'm from there and know well enough how relatively wealthy foreigner can be regarded there :)

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I worked in a neighboring country, but traveled to Tblisi on occasion. I liked it a lot actually. :) I would give anything for some hachapuri and Georgian wine right now, for example! :)

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You are right... There's a lot of unknowns here.

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I actually didn't have any problems in Georgia... well, except for the time I was kicked off the train 70 K east of Tblisi late at night over some made-up problems with my visa to the next country... Wow, good times... I totally forgot about that!

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alon_68

Yea, it's great! I really miss khachapuri (and Lagidze water) here in Israel. But not wine, we have enough good Georgian wine in the Russian shops :)

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awelon.livejournal.com

sure, I'd be happy to help!

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