Applying For Tech Jobs? You’re Competing With Russia.
By: Frederik Bussler
Tags: Jobs, Hiring, Technology

Applying For Tech Jobs? You’re Competing With Russia.

Photo by Jaunt and Joy on Unsplash

Coursera is a tech unicorn, the world’s biggest online course provider, and serves over 43 million students. Every year, they release a Global Skills Index report, using performance from Coursera learners to rank countries, industries, and fields of study globally.

In the latest report, Russia ranks #1 in tech.

Why Russia is #1 in Tech (and Data Science)

Coursera credits Russia’s leading ranking to a number of factors, including their ability to produce the most talented software engineers, who consistently dominate programming contests (beating even China).

Another factor is that Russia massively scales its robust education system, churning out 450,000 engineering graduates a year — more than any other country.

Another factor is that Russian students get a headstart in tech, as Russia’s Federal Educational Standards mandates that informatics is taught in middle school, unlike in the US, where it’s never mandatory at all.

Coursera’s 43 million learners can even get an online Master of Data Science from HSE University, a Russian university.

Diving Deeper — Russia’s Tech Culture

It’s not just that Russia’s educational system prioritizes technology — it’s a part of Russia’s cultural fabric.

In a Wired article, a Russian hacker explains the situation:

“We call Russia the Hackzone because there are so many of us here, and we are so good at what we do… Here hacking is a good job, one of the few good jobs left.”

Without many career alternatives, there’s a financial incentive to hacking, and indeed, becoming a tech expert. Other research shows that Russians don’t regard hackers as criminals, and that the hacker ideology is accepted there.

How Other Countries Can Catch Up

On a global scale, if you can code, you’re part of the 0.3% — a rarity. Countries can’t change their education systems or culture overnight, so how can they catch up to Russia?

The rare blue lobster.

The answer is no-code tools.

Today, no-code tools enable non-technical people to do amazing, complex things, from building well-designed websites in Webflow, to building an Android app in Adalo, or even building machine learning models in Obviously.AI.

While the average data scientist salary reaches six-figures, no-code tools make AI accessible for even emerging economies and scrappy startups.

Case Studies

For example, Creditt, an Indian micro-loan agency, uses Obviously.AI’s API to score customer profiles and determine how much to credit users. Without needing expertise in code or AI, Creditt was able to deploy advanced predictive analytics technology central to their business model.

To give another example, Harmony Health, an insurance company, uses Obviously.AI’s API for dynamic pricing.

Conclusion

On a national level, evolving a country’s education system and ideology to be more code-centric would take many years, if not decades.

No-code tools, including no-code AI, can rapidly evolve any company’s AI capacity, and even that of a nation.

Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel