Israel is one of the world’s strongest technology ecosystems. But for Israeli companies growing their engineering teams, the question is increasingly not only who to hire, but where to hire.
The latest data from the Israel Innovation Authority shows that Israeli high-tech companies are becoming increasingly international. By March 2026, 62% of employees at private Israeli high-tech companies were based in Israel, compared with 69% in 2019. The Authority also reports that the strongest growth in Israeli companies’ R&D activity outside Israel has been recorded in Eastern Europe and the United States. For companies looking to expand their technology teams in Europe, Poland is one of the markets worth considering. But entering the Polish IT recruitment market is not simply a matter of posting a job on LinkedIn and waiting for applications.
The Polish technology market is large, competitive and highly diverse. Understanding where the right candidates are, how they approach job changes, what they expect from employers and how recruitment processes work can make a significant difference to your hiring results. This guide explains what Israeli companies should know before starting IT recruitment in Poland.
Table of Contents
Why Poland is worth considering for Israeli tech companies
Poland has developed into one of Europe’s largest technology markets.
According to the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), the Polish ICT sector includes more than 100,000 entities. Among companies employing at least 10 people, around 325,000 people work in ICT, with almost 90% employed in ICT services. The sector generated almost PLN 270 billion in IT and ICT services sales in 2023 and exported more IT services than Japan or South Korea. For an Israeli technology company, the important point is not simply the size of these numbers.
It is the depth of the market. Poland has a long-established ecosystem of software engineers, data specialists, DevOps and cloud professionals, QA engineers, cybersecurity experts, technical leaders and other technology specialists. It is also home to large international R&D organisations as well as Polish product companies and startups. That creates a talent market with experience of working on complex international products, distributed teams and English-speaking environments. For companies considering hiring IT talent in Poland, this makes the country particularly interesting when they need to expand beyond a small number of individual hires and start thinking about building a larger engineering or R&D team.
The real challenge of IT recruitment in Poland: finding the right people
There is a common misconception about technology recruitment:
If a country has a large number of IT professionals, hiring should be easy.
In reality, the opposite can sometimes be true. A large technology market gives employers access to more talent, but it also means that good candidates have more opportunities. For an Israeli company entering Poland, the challenge is rarely simply finding CVs. It is finding people who match the technical requirements, are open to changing jobs, are interested in the company and fit the way the team works. This is particularly important for senior and specialised positions.
The best IT candidates may not be looking for a job
Experienced software engineers, Engineering Managers, architects, DevOps specialists or AI professionals are often already employed. They may not be actively applying to vacancies. They might, however, be open to the right opportunity. This is why effective IT recruitment in Poland often needs to go beyond job advertising.
A recruitment strategy can include:
- targeted candidate sourcing,
- direct outreach,
- professional networks,
- referrals,
- job boards,
- existing candidate communities,
- recruitment databases,
- relationships with passive candidates.
For international companies, this is one of the biggest differences between simply having access to the Polish market and actually knowing how to recruit in it. At dotLinkers, we often see the same pattern: the issue is not a lack of applications. The challenge is reaching the people who are relevant, available for the right conversation and genuinely interested in the opportunity.
What IT roles can Israeli companies hire in Poland?
The Polish market offers talent across most major technology disciplines.
Depending on the city, seniority and technology stack, companies can recruit for roles including:
- Software Engineers
- Backend Developers
- Frontend Developers
- Full-Stack Developers
- Java Developers
- Python Developers
- .NET Developers
- JavaScript / TypeScript Developers
- DevOps Engineers
- Cloud Engineers
- Data Engineers
- Data Scientists
- AI and Machine Learning Engineers
- Cybersecurity Specialists
- QA Automation Engineers
- Mobile Developers
- Solution Architects
- Engineering Managers
- Technical Leads
- Product and technology leadership roles
The difficulty of hiring these profiles varies considerably.
Hiring a mid-level generalist developer is one thing. Finding a Staff Engineer with experience in a specific cloud environment, a particular product domain and the ability to work closely with an Israeli engineering organisation is something completely different. This is why a recruitment strategy should start with market mapping, not simply with a job description.
Before hiring in Poland, validate the role against the market
One of the most valuable things a recruitment partner can provide is not another list of CVs. It is market feedback. Before launching a recruitment campaign, Israeli companies should ask:
Does this candidate profile actually exist?
If the job description requires six technologies, ten years of experience, leadership skills, fluent English and a very specific industry background, the theoretical candidate may exist. But how many such people are actually available in the Polish market? And how many of them are willing to move?
Is the salary competitive?
Candidate expectations vary by:
- technology,
- seniority,
- location,
- industry,
- employment model,
- company size,
- international exposure.
A salary that works well in one market may not be competitive in another.
Is the employment model attractive?
B2B contracting is an established model within the Polish IT market, alongside traditional employment. Companies entering Poland should understand the implications of each model and establish early what they can offer candidates.
Is the job description too broad?
Sometimes the recruitment problem is hidden inside the requirements. If a company is struggling to find candidates, the answer may not be “source harder”. It may be that the role itself needs to be redefined. A good recruitment partner should be able to challenge the brief when the market data suggests it is unrealistic.
Where should Israeli companies hire IT talent in Poland?
The best location depends on the type of team you want to build.
Kraków
Kraków is one of Poland’s most established technology markets, with a strong concentration of international companies, engineering teams and R&D operations. It is particularly interesting for companies looking for software engineering talent with experience in international environments. For Israeli companies building a team from scratch, Kraków can also offer an established ecosystem rather than requiring the company to create an entirely new technology community around itself. At dotLinkers, Kraków is our home market, so we know the local candidate landscape particularly well.
Warsaw
Warsaw is Poland’s largest business centre and has one of the country’s broadest talent pools. It is a strong market for software engineering, data, product, fintech, technology leadership and business roles. The trade-off is competition. International companies recruiting in Warsaw are often competing for the same experienced professionals.
Wrocław
Wrocław has a mature technology and engineering ecosystem and a significant presence of international companies. It can be a strong option for companies looking to build engineering and R&D teams outside Warsaw and Kraków.
Trójmiasto
Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot form another established technology market, with a strong presence of software and product companies. For some profiles, it can provide access to talent outside the most competitive markets.
The key takeaway
Don’t choose a Polish hiring location simply because it has the largest number of developers. Choose it based on the people you actually need to hire.
How long does IT recruitment in Poland take?
The time required depends on the role, seniority, location, salary, employment model and hiring process. A common mistake is to assume that recruitment time is determined only by the recruitment agency. It isn’t. The speed of the whole hiring process matters.
For example:
- Week 1: role briefing and candidate sourcing
- Week 1–2: initial candidate conversations and first profiles
- Week 2–3: interviews
- Week 3–4+: final interviews, offer and negotiations
This is only an example, not a guaranteed timeline. Highly specialised positions can take considerably longer. The important point is that companies should monitor the entire recruitment funnel:
Sourcing → screening → interview → decision → offer → acceptance
If candidates are disappearing between stages, adding more sourcing will not necessarily solve the problem. Sometimes the bottleneck is the interview process itself.
Why passive candidates matter in Polish IT recruitment
One of the biggest differences between general recruitment and specialist tech recruitment in Poland is the importance of passive candidates. A candidate who is actively applying to twenty jobs is not necessarily the person an employer wants most.
For senior technology roles, companies often need people who are:
- already employed,
- experienced in a specific technology,
- successful in their current role,
- not actively job hunting,
- but potentially interested in a significantly better opportunity.
Reaching these candidates requires a different approach. The first message matters. So does the employer story. An Israeli company entering Poland may be completely familiar to the local technology community or almost unknown.
Candidates will want to understand:
- Why is this company hiring in Poland?
- Why is this team being built?
- Who will I work with?
- Will I work directly with the Israeli engineering organisation?
- What technology will I work with?
- Is this a long-term investment in Poland or simply a short-term hiring project?
These questions are part of recruitment.
They are not an afterthought.
Building an R&D team in Poland: when recruitment needs to scale
Hiring one developer is very different from building a 20-person engineering team. When companies plan several hires over a period of months, recruitment becomes an operational function. This is where RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) can become useful. Instead of treating every vacancy as a separate recruitment project, a dedicated recruitment team can support the company continuously with:
- candidate sourcing,
- screening,
- market mapping,
- interview coordination,
- candidate communication,
- recruitment reporting,
- pipeline management,
- offer support.
For an Israeli company entering the Polish market for the first time, this approach can also reduce the time needed to learn how the local talent market works. The recruiter becomes familiar with the technology stack, hiring managers, interview process and candidate profile. That knowledge compounds with every hire.
Recruitment agency vs. internal hiring: which model is right?
Use internal recruitment when:
- you already have a local recruitment team,
- you hire continuously at significant scale,
- you have established employer branding in Poland,
- you already understand the local talent market.
Use a recruitment agency in Success Fee model when:
- you need a small number of specialist hires,
- you are entering Poland for the first time,
- you need access to passive candidates,
- you need help with difficult-to-fill positions,
- you want recruitment support without building a local team.
Consider RPO when:
- you are building a new engineering or R&D team,
- you expect multiple hires,
- recruitment will continue for several months,
- you need dedicated recruiters but do not want to build the entire function internally.
The right model depends on the hiring plan, not on which recruitment model sounds best on paper.
What Israeli companies should avoid when hiring in Poland
- TreatingPoland as simply a cheaper version of another market
Poland has competitive costs, but that is not the whole story. You are hiring people, not purchasing development hours. Technology expertise, candidate quality, retention, communication and access to specialist talent matter more than simply comparing salaries between countries.
- Relyingonly on job advertisements
Job boards are useful. They are not a complete recruitment strategy, particularly for senior technology roles.
- Waitingtoo long between interviews
Strong candidates often have other options. A slow process can cost you the candidate you already spent weeks finding.
- Using the samehiringstrategy everywhere
The recruitment market is local. What works in Tel Aviv does not automatically work in Kraków.
- Focusingon CV volume instead of candidate quality
A recruitment report with 150 applications may look impressive. If none of the candidates meets the actual requirements, it is not a successful recruitment campaign.
The better metric is: How many relevant people did we identify, engage and successfully move through the process?
What makes Poland particularly practical for Israeli engineering teams?
Beyond the size of the talent market, there are several practical considerations.
Time zone
Poland and Israel are close enough geographically for convenient collaboration, with only a small time difference for most of the year. For engineering teams working closely across locations, this is significantly easier than working across large time-zone gaps.
International experience
Poland has spent years building technology teams for global organisations. Many candidates are already comfortable working in English and collaborating with colleagues based in multiple countries.
Mature technology ecosystem
Poland is not simply an outsourcing destination. The country has its own technology companies, product organisations, R&D centres and innovation ecosystem. PARP’s latest IT/ICT report highlights the sector’s growing capabilities in areas including AI, cloud computing, IoT and cybersecurity.
Strong R&D activity
The Polish ICT sector is also one of the country’s significant contributors to R&D spending. PARP reports that ICT R&D expenditure reached almost PLN 9.5 billion in 2023, with more than 90% of that expenditure coming from ICT service companies.
For companies considering building an R&D team in Poland, this is an important distinction.
You are entering an existing technology ecosystem.
So, is Poland right for your next IT hires?
It depends on what you are trying to build.
Poland may be a strong option if you are an Israeli:
- startup scaling its engineering team,
- scale-up expanding into Europe,
- technology company looking for specialist talent,
- company building an international R&D organisation,
- business that needs several software engineers over the coming months,
- company looking for recruitment support in a market where it does not yet have an internal team.
But entering a new market should start with a realistic understanding of the talent pool.
- Not every role will be easy to fill.
- Not every salary will be competitive.
- Not every candidate will be interested in working for an Israeli company.
- And not every recruitment process will work the same way it does in Israel.
That is exactly why local recruitment expertise matters.
IT recruitment in Poland for Israeli companies: the bottom line
Israel has a world-class technology ecosystem. Poland has one of Europe’s largest and most established IT talent markets. The opportunity is not about choosing one instead of the other. For many companies, it is about combining them. An Israeli company can keep its product vision, leadership and core operations in Israel while building additional engineering capacity in Poland. But successful international hiring requires more than identifying a country on a map. It requires understanding the people behind the market.
Who is actually available? Who is open to a move? What motivates them? What compensation do they expect? Which locations make sense? How competitive is the role? And how should the recruitment process be designed to convert interest into actual hires?
That is where an experienced IT recruitment agency in Poland can add value. At dotLinkers, we help international companies recruit IT professionals in Poland, from individual specialist hires to larger engineering and R&D recruitment projects. We understand the Polish technology market, but more importantly, we understand that every company entering it has a different hiring challenge. If you are an Israeli company considering hiring IT talent in Poland, let’s talk about the roles you need to fill and what the Polish market looks like for them.
Sources
- Israel Innovation Authority, State of High-Tech 2026 / Israeli High-Tech Annual Report.
- Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), The IT/ICT Sector in Poland – Report 2025.
