Poland's reverse brain drain: Meet the Poles returning home to work in its booming tech sector

Poland was once known for the number of people who left the country for work; emigrating to Britain, Italy and the US among other countries.

But after years of steady economic growth, educated Poles are returning to their homeland in a kind of reverse brain drain. This shouldn’t be a surprise: the country is set to catch up economically with the UK in terms of GDP per person by the end of the decade.

Warsaw, in particular, has become a hub of economic activity in recent years, with multinational companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia attracted by the educated workforce, and relatively low cost of living and labour costs.

These companies have set up multibillion-euro operations among the glistening skyscrapers in the city centre, creating a range of well-paid job opportunities. Poland has, for instance, outpaced huge countries like China, India, and Brazil for growth in online services, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Dominik Andrzejczuk is perhaps the new Poland’s biggest evangelist. A Polish-American venture capitalist, he got fed up with Silicon Valley’s macho “brogrammer” culture and now makes flashy videos and speaks at tech conferences about why companies should invest in plucky Poland.

"Poland is sitting on a gold mine of tech talent, ranking 4 overall in STEM graduates and number 1 in female STEM graduates," he said. "It’s this high concentration of tech talent that sets Poland up to be a real contender in the next 5-10 years… What really gets me excited is the quality of the engineers here".

One of those software engineers is Monica Wojciechowska. Born and raised in New Jersey in the US, her Polish heritage was always important to her.

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