This article summarizes a discussion between Kirill Makevnin, host of the Organized Programming podcast, and Anna Afonina, a recruiter and matchmaker who works with candidates, employers, investors, and partners. The discussion covered the state of the Russian-language IT labor market and the factors driving it.

Shift Toward Employer Leverage

Afonina said the labor market has moved toward employers over the past year. Employers have always made hiring errors, but the shift in market conditions has allowed them to set the terms of hiring. She described a reversal from earlier practice. Previously, a new offer often came with a salary increase. Now, employers hire new staff at lower salaries and expect higher productivity.

Afonina said candidates' experience of hiring has worsened. She noted that the quality of interaction between recruiters and candidates has declined, and she recommended that recruiters conduct searches themselves to observe current conditions.

Remote Work and Cross-Border Employment

Demand for remote roles

Afonina estimated that roughly 100 candidates compete for each remote position. Most candidates push for office roles. Office vacancies are harder to fill, as are roles with low salaries, weak processes, or poor employer reputations.

Companies with strong reputations and high salaries receive candidates through referrals and do not need to post vacancies. Afonina said these employers receive more candidates than they can use.

Remote work as a perk

Afonina said remote work became a standard feature during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 and has since returned to being a perk. Candidates who receive offers from larger, better-funded companies consider remote roles that include the option to work from abroad. Afonina said the option to work abroad has narrowed.

Restrictions on Russian citizens

Afonina said the number of countries where candidates with Russian passports can work has decreased over the past three years. Many global vacancies exclude candidates located in Russia and Belarus. Work visa requirements and residence rules also restrict candidates in other countries.

Afonina described a case in which a client's competitor verified where employees actually worked. The company identified staff working from inside Russia despite different names and surnames on LinkedIn, and it issued a public statement. Afonina said such checks reduce the number of available loopholes. In some cases, companies offer relocation instead of refusing candidates in Russia.

Return migration

Some Russian professionals who had moved abroad returned. Afonina said the reasons were mostly family-related, including children and ill parents, rather than professional. She said she sees fewer employers in Russia than abroad.

Vacancy Volume and Sourcing Practices

Declining vacancy postings

Afonina said the number of job postings is declining. She cited her own recruiter community, in which more than 40% of recruiters do not post vacancies. Some have removed vacancies from job sites because open postings generate large volumes of unqualified applications. She described receiving a thousand spam applications for a single post.

Afonina said she stopped posting vacancies about ten years ago. She finds candidates through networks of companies, referrals, and references, which she considers faster than reviewing 200 applications.

Fake profiles and verification

Afonina said fake resumes are common. She said LinkedIn allows profile verification, where employers confirm employment and colleagues confirm education. Other platforms have not reached this level of verification.

Passive recruiting

Afonina said most hiring now relies on active and passive sourcing. Recruiters identify candidates through digital footprints, published articles, conference talks, referrals, and employment at donor companies. Many of these roles never reach the open market. She said most people are willing to speak with recruiters even when they are not actively searching.

Donor Companies

Afonina said candidates from donor companies, which have complex tasks, recognizable brands, and large staffs, are the most sought after. She described referrals from these firms as a reliable source of talent. Candidates who want to strengthen their hiring prospects often fail to see how their employer's reputation affects them.

Afonina named donor companies by stack in the Russian market:

Afonina also said she does not work with Yandex as a client but has recruited many senior developers from Yandex for other companies. Kirill Makevnin said that candidates on startup teams often have a harder time moving to large companies, because startups require more effort to source from.

Demand by Specialization

Core areas

Afonina said the four areas with the most significant demand discussed at ProfiFest were front-end development, QA, product management, and design.

Product engineers and the "octopus-shaped" specialist

Afonina cited an observation by Kolya Gorelov, the organizer of IT Picnic, who now focuses on creators: "The cost of development is trending toward zero, while the cost of user attention is trending toward infinity."

Afonina said demand has grown for business-oriented roles. Employers want product engineers who handle testing, front-end, back-end, and, with AI tools, product tasks. She described this profile as "octopus-shaped," following earlier profiles known as T-shaped and J-shaped. Employers increasingly consolidate functions into one person to reduce development costs and increase spending on marketing and business development.

Kirill Makevnin said the product engineer role has been discussed for about two years and that demand for it comes from employers and from growing solo entrepreneurship.

Co-founder pairing

Afonina described co-founder meetings in which technical specialists lack skills in sales, marketing, and business development. She said the most difficult step is to convince technical specialists that their expertise has limits. She advised technical specialists to find a business partner and noted that such a partner should value technical expertise in return for business expertise.

Roles with stable demand

Afonina identified the following areas as stable:

• Sysadmins. Employers are again valuing traditional system administrators, not only DevOps roles.
• Hardware-adjacent roles. Work close to hardware, including printed circuit boards and hardware development, is harder to automate and remains difficult to enter.
• Management and human-interaction roles. Negotiation and roles involving direct human contact remain difficult to automate. Management demand remains high despite layoffs.
• Technical requirements gathering. Demand for roles that extract technical requirements from founders remains.
• Business analysts. Demand has not declined.

Programming languages

Afonina said Go demand is stable. She said Python demand has grown and that more Python positions have appeared. Technologies that were less popular at their peak, including Rust, Haskell, and Ruby, are declining first. Afonina attributed this to the increasing use of AI development tools such as Claude and Cursor. Kirill Makevnin said Rust follows a different trajectory.

Economic Conditions and Consumer Spending

Afonina said the current slowdown is primarily economic. Development costs are falling, but companies continue to spend on marketing to acquire users. She said the subscription model is well established in the United States and some other countries but less developed in Russia. In the Russian consumer market, subscriptions, taxis, and food delivery form the main paid digital services. Most other IT products are sold to businesses.

Afonina said consumers are reluctant to pay for services such as AI photo generation because the market is highly competitive. She stated that the central issue is whether users have money. She described business revenue as derived from consumer spending, so reduced demand leads to a chain reaction across the sector.

Kirill Makevnin said consumer spending has shifted to basic needs. Afonina added that she observed growth in agrotech but also saw several agrotech businesses close. She said some agrotech companies expected revenue growth that did not materialize.

Layoffs and Cutbacks

Scope

Afonina said many cutbacks are underway and that they affect key employees. She said Telegram channels now track layoffs and cutbacks daily across Russia. These channels publish the reasons for layoffs and the terms offered. Layoffs occur at large and medium-sized companies. Some companies do not provide severance pay. Afonina said most current workforce reductions are cutbacks rather than formal layoffs, or are framed as optimization.

Severance and support

Afonina said employers that pay several months of salary give employees time to search for work. She argued that employers should also pay for outplacement or job-search services. She said candidates fear being left without income.

Outsourcing firms and polyworking

Afonina described outsourcing firms that face fewer client orders. Some of these firms tell employees that they cannot afford to keep them fully employed and that they may need them later. These firms permit employees to work for other companies during periods of low workload.

Big Tech

Kirill Makevnin said that at summer conferences in Moscow, including one referred to as Bunin's, participants from Big Tech companies described a goal of cutting 25–30% of staff over the next year. Afonina said that, according to her conversations with companies, only one-fifth of planned cuts have occurred this year. She said companies are reducing staff gradually, at roughly one-fifth per year, which suggests further reductions. Afonina said the impact of AI on workforce decisions began to appear in the last six months.

Afonina said companies that lay off staff now usually either act without a clear process or cut low-productivity employees. She noted that some companies rehire staff within days of layoffs.

Afonina said she has observed salary reductions during transitions, particularly at small and medium-sized companies. Employers may propose lower pay or a switch to a base salary plus KPI model.

Founders taking jobs

Afonina described a 2026 trend in which founders take jobs to pay their employees' salaries.

Compensation

Remote and foreign roles

Afonina said salaries in major global hubs, including New York, London, Singapore, and Dubai, remain high. She cited a figure of 15,000 dollars for senior roles in these cities. She said the main constraint for Russian candidates is whether foreign employers will hire people with Russian passports. She said she is not concerned about Dubai or Singapore but has concerns about other countries.

Russian market

Afonina said salaries in the Russian market have fallen sharply. She cited a request to hire a senior Go developer for 350,000 rubles as an example of salaries that are, in her words, almost unrealistic.

Senior and lead roles in Tier-1 markets

Afonina said starting salaries for senior developers in small companies with low margins were previously 5,000–7,000 dollars. Most now start at five thousand dollars. Lead roles at 7,000–9,000 dollars are rare, and most offers are near the lower end, around seven thousand dollars. CTO compensation varies with the business model and margins.

Comparison: local and remote

Afonina gave an example of a candidate who earns 210,000 rubles in a local IT role with an IT mortgage. She said the same candidate could earn 400,000 rubles working remotely for a foreign company. Afonina said that, even with a mortgage, the remote role offers a higher net outcome.

Salary expectations

Kirill Makevnin said candidates who reach high salary levels still consider offers at lower compensation. Afonina described a candidate who earns 1.5 million and works remotely for a US company with consultants from Silicon Valley. The candidate continued searching. Afonina said other candidates who earned 1.5 million now say they would accept 500.

Afonina said she advises candidates to consider the salary range of their competitors. For example, she said that for Rust developers with equivalent experience, competitors ask for five or six thousand dollars per hour or month, so a candidate who requests 70 dollars per hour may be excluded from consideration because they are not seeking full-time work. Afonina said candidates who insist on high rates risk being set aside.

Remote-only search

Afonina said candidates who restrict their search to remote roles face strong competition. She advised removing some other criteria, such as accreditation, the requirement for a manager described as adequate, product specifics, specific tasks, or salary range, to expand the pool. Afonina said office roles offer more variety.

Job Search Duration and Candidate Behavior

Afonina said she has tracked job searches for over a year. She estimated that a search for a regular developer takes two to three months. She said candidates often expect faster results. Interview scheduling delays of a month are common, and candidates often remain unemployed while they wait.

Afonina said candidates typically become anxious and exhausted after about a month and a half. Some stop interviewing and accept the first offer, including offers from companies they had previously ruled out. She said she advises candidates to continue searching for a role that fits long-term, but many do not follow this advice.

Afonina said hiring processes now include up to ten interview stages, extended over three to four months. She said the length of the process causes candidates to feel worn down.

Interviews and Hiring Practices

AI in interviews

Afonina said some companies now allow candidates to use AI during interviews. Employers ask candidates to show how they write prompts and how they reason. Afonina said companies without development work, where AI use is prohibited, often require candidates to write answers by hand on paper.

Afonina described three formats for technical assessments:

1. A task given during the interview, with a request for explanation afterward.
2. A test assigned during the interview, with a discussion of the results afterward.
3. A task given during the interview, with a follow-up interview scheduled a few hours later.

Afonina said standard tasks, such as writing a function, no longer reliably assess candidates when AI is available. She said this shift has changed interviews significantly.

Impersonation and deepfakes

Kirill Makevnin asked about the prevalence of candidates who use face-swapping or deepfakes during interviews. Afonina said recruiters who post vacancies encounter these cases frequently, but she said the frequency has declined. She said HR teams now ask candidates to move their hands and show their surroundings, and to position the camera in different directions. She said interview fraud is more often carried out by a different person who resembles the candidate, sometimes at the final stage. Afonina said such cases are sometimes detected by comparing facial features at the final stage. She said candidates may also use a second person who types on the keyboard out of camera view. She said these measures do not fully prevent fraud.

Reference checks

Afonina said reference checks have become more common. She described a standard approach in which the employer compiles its own list of references from the candidate's employer and contacts those people directly, rather than relying on references chosen by the candidate. Afonina said candidates who decline this process typically do not advance.

Afonina said references for managerial roles should function as a 360-degree assessment. She said employers should speak with more than one person because the reason for a departure may lie with the employer. She said recruiters who only confirm that a candidate worked at a company, without verifying the reason for departure, act unprofessionally and may violate laws and ethical standards. She said C-level hiring always involves deeper checks.

Afonina described an internal reputation database used to evaluate executives. She said the database contains feedback from former subordinates and records of why they left. She said she checks this database before engaging with a C-level executive.

Interview fit and selection criteria

Afonina said interviews cannot reliably determine whether a candidate fits a role within one hour. She said she has been involved in hiring for over ten years and that her own employees have usually worked with her before, often in project work. Afonina said compatibility matters more than hard skills in this context.

Kirill Makevnin and Afonina discussed that some hiring decisions reportedly rely on astrology or tarot. Afonina said she has not encountered clients rejecting candidates on this basis.

Resume evaluation

Afonina said resumes now contain AI-generated content that makes candidate evaluation difficult. She said she stopped focusing on resumes in marketing hiring and instead evaluates the companies where candidates worked and the candidates' recognized employers.

Afonina said some employers now reject candidates for appearing "too polished." She said AI-generated resumes produce vague text without keywords, and job descriptions have become similarly vague to avoid automated filtering.

Filtering and sourcing tools

Afonina said AI is used in two directions. Filtering tools process incoming applications, and sourcing tools identify candidates for outreach. Afonina said vacancies still close with this approach, but she said filtering causes discrimination and other problems. She said she avoids both approaches and relies on offline methods, primarily referrals.

HeadHunter

Afonina said recruiters avoid HeadHunter for verification reasons. She said the State Services integration does not provide enough user verification. She described a proposal she made to recruiters for a "report profile" feature, through which a former employer could state that a candidate never worked for them. Under this proposal, only the employer listed on the resume could submit such a report, and disputes would be resolved on the platform.

Afonina said LinkedIn introduced user verification, and recruiters have moved to LinkedIn because of this feature.

Referrals and Hiring Quality

Afonina said referrals now account for a larger share of hiring. She said the quality of a referral depends on the referrer, and referrers face reputational risk. She said she does not refer candidates who do not fit a company because her reputation depends on those referrals.

Afonina described a format she introduced called hiring dating. In this format, a technical mentor trusted by the market evaluates a candidate and states their grade, such as middle or senior. Employers can then consider the referral based on the mentor's evaluation. Afonina said she sends candidates she mentors to such mentors for evaluation, so that employers know who recommends each candidate, for which roles, and at what grade.

Afonina said referrals from non-technical or unverified sources often lead to poor results. She described cases in which candidates recommended without technical validation did not perform after hiring.

Ethics and Age

Age discrimination

Afonina said she advocates for older candidates and urges employers to review their assumptions. She said candidates over 40 are often seen as outdated. Kirill Makevnin said that in the Russian industry, a 40-year-old programmer is now common, but fifty is commonly considered the upper limit.

Afonina said she sees problems for candidates starting after age 50. She said she approaches employers by defining specific criteria and discussing concerns. She acknowledged that some older candidates face genuine issues with authority, instructions, and modern methods.

Part-time work

Afonina said she is looking for ways to place experienced professionals in part-time roles. She said candidates over 50 have asked for part-time work and are willing to accept reduced salaries.

Other groups

Afonina said she supports women returning from maternity leave and some groups of men who face particular barriers. She said she is concerned about younger candidates.

Career transitions

Afonina described professionals who left IT after burnout. She cited a case of a former programmer who became a photographer and later returned to software development. She described a DBA who left his role, opened an anti-café in Singapore, and later closed it after two years. He then returned to development. She described others who entered landscape design.

Afonina said career gaps often prompt employers to assume burnout or identity problems. She said employers frequently reject candidates who have changed jobs often. She recommended asking candidates about the reasons for each change and how they addressed the underlying problems. She said some candidates take breaks for therapy or other personal reasons, and that employers should not assume a problem exists in every case.

Public perception of HR

Kirill Makevnin noted that online discussions frequently express hostility toward recruiters. Afonina said recruiters act as the front end of hiring decisions, and that hiring managers often do not provide feedback or follow up. She said some recruiters relay harsh feedback from hiring managers without care, and she said she avoids doing so.

Afonina said she sometimes challenges clients, which carries a risk of losing business. She said her approach depends on established trust with clients.

Candidate Support and Career Services

Afonina said many candidates now seek help from recruiters and career coaches, including candidates who previously refused such services. She said candidates often reach out in desperation. She said she received replies to messages dating back to 2016 from people who had previously declined her services.

Afonina said she runs a job search service on behalf of candidates. She said filling vacancies is now less difficult than finding jobs, and that senior candidates encounter many rejections. She said many senior candidates have never developed job search skills.

Afonina said candidates often do not understand the workload involved in searching, which includes Boolean searches, referral requests, and outreach to acquaintances. She said some candidates who initially refused her help returned five months later still unemployed.

Afonina said some candidates have savings, while many have no financial safety net. She said candidates who keep searching while employed are better positioned than those who wait until they lose income. She noted that IT mortgages, family obligations, and other expenses increase financial pressure. She said an IT mortgage can tie a candidate to a current employer because a job change may increase payments.

Employment Stability and Job Changes

Afonina said candidates remain in their jobs longer than before. She said many candidates are open to other offers, but few offers appear. She said passive job searching has grown significantly.

Afonina advised candidates to respond to invitations from other companies. She said that meeting a company in a non-filtered setting, when the company invites the candidate, provides better conditions for evaluation than the standard hiring process.

Entrepreneurship

Afonina said she would like to see more entrepreneurship, which would create new jobs. She said Russia has fewer entrepreneurs and fewer investors than before. She said many businesses do not require significant investment, including outside IT.

Afonina said founders who have worked in corporate roles often gain a better understanding of employers and their expectations after starting their own companies.

Kirill Makevnin noted that new businesses depend on market growth. Afonina said businesses in a stagnant or declining market face difficulty. She said few people know how to earn money in a shrinking market. She cited Anton Nazarov as an exception. She said his training business grew during a downturn by positioning itself against the prevailing conditions. Afonina said his methods have recently stopped working, and that clients have grown dissatisfied.

Afonina said she has run her business for 14 years and that long periods of growth can lead entrepreneurs to assume stability. She said her own business has also changed in response to market conditions.

Afonina said she sees value in pursuing less crowded market segments. She described a lack of products and services for people under 18 and over 45, while most businesses target the 20–45 age group. She said creative business models may succeed when competitors focus on the same segment. She described recruiting agencies as requiring only a laptop to start.

Outlook

Afonina said the Russian hiring model needs changes. She said Russian labor law and the reliance on outsourcing, contractor agreements, and sole proprietorships reduce employer risk but leave little room for project-based work or hourly models. She said freelancing has not proven itself as a model.

Afonina said candidates and employers may benefit from working together before a formal hiring decision. She said trial work outside formal employment can replace unpaid trial periods.

Afonina expects that candidates will present portfolios with projects, digital references from former employers, and recommendations from colleagues, rather than one-page resumes. She said LinkedIn already provides many of these features. She said the question for the Russian market is whether HeadHunter will introduce similar functions. She added that a designer-style portfolio, which includes code samples and links to a professional digital footprint, may be more useful than LinkedIn.

Kirill Makevnin and Afonina concluded that the market remains unstable, and that its direction will depend on economic conditions, AI adoption, and employer decisions.