{"id":30804,"date":"2026-05-29T17:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefender.media\/?p=30804"},"modified":"2026-08-16T14:03:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T11:03:30","slug":"how-cultures-collide-in-defence-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefender.media\/en\/2026\/05\/how-cultures-collide-in-defence-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Five \u201cschools\u201d riding the same bicycle: how different cultures collide in Defence tech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This op-ed by CORE Team founder Anna Korol opens a new special project by Defender Media exploring recruitment in the defence business. On one hand, the sector faces an enormous talent shortage. On the other, there is a huge amount of industry-specific complexity, security concerns, and operational risks that slow down and complicate hiring. Throughout the summer, we will examine the realities of recruitment in defence tech and share practical cases and advice. Background checks, hiring veterans, engineers, and young specialists \u2014 leading experts will explain how to approach these challenges.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first article of the series, Anna Korol looks at the different cultures colliding inside Defence tech \u2014 and how they can learn to understand one another.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no accidental people in the defence industry. Not among candidates, and not among founders. Everyone came here from another life, driven by the goal of Ukraine\u2019s victory. And each of those previous lives taught them to make decisions about teams in very different ways. For some, execution discipline comes first. For others, it is the hiring funnel. And for some, it is all about processes and five-year planning horizons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why, when a Ukrainian Defence tech company sits down to decide whom to hire, what often collides is not arguments but entire management worldviews brought into the hiring process. And right now, this is the most expensive conversation on the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A startup cubed<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In an IT startup, you build the bicycle while riding it. In Defence tech, things are even \u201cmore fun\u201d. You build it while it is on fire \u2014 and it is not just one bicycle, but an entire production line of them, because the country is defending itself here and now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers show the scale of these \u201cfun\u201d challenges. According to estimates by KSE, Brave1, and Defence Builder, Ukraine\u2019s defence technology market reached $6.8 billion in 2025. According to Brave1<\/a>, more than 1,500 Ukrainian defence tech startups had joined the platform as of 2025. Around 90% of them have been operating for more than four years, yet most still employ only 50\u2013250 people. At the same time, both the market and the companies themselves continue to scale rapidly. In our research<\/a> with the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry, all 27 surveyed companies said they planned to expand, while 25 out of 27 had open vacancies at the time of the survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What exactly is startup-like about it? Everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The industry itself, because nobody has written the rules of the game yet. Every individual company, because its structure is rewritten every quarter. Every internal team, because people come from five entirely different donor sectors \u2014 or \u201cschools\u201d, as I call them \u2014 and in many cases they are not simply changing employers, but entering an entirely new industry: Defence tech. Which means learning everything again from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, we are dealing with three layers of uncertainty simultaneously. And that is only the external part of the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five \u201cschools\u201d of hiring at one table<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Now for the most interesting part: who is building that burning bicycle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defence tech companies bring together people with fundamentally different management backgrounds. Each comes with their own professional experience, deep expertise in their original industry, their own instincts, and their own approach to making decisions about people. I have identified five main \u201cschools\u201d of hiring \u2014 depending on the industry a manager comes from \u2014 that I constantly see among our clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IT. <\/strong>This group is characterised by systematic recruiting<\/a>, strong expertise in building compelling EVPs, competition for individual talent, and flexible compensation models. What often requires adaptation is the speed of making difficult people decisions \u2014 especially when someone has to be told: \u201cit did not work out\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Military-related backgrounds (former service members, veterans)<\/strong>. For them, recruitment is first and foremost about mission above all else, clear hierarchy, execution discipline, and loyalty as a core value. What they need to consider in order to hire effectively is adapting to the logic of the civilian market: compensation expectations and \u201csoft\u201d HR tools such as employer branding, which are perceived very differently in military environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manufacturing<\/strong>. People from this background are usually focused on long-term planning horizons, process discipline, and growing talent internally. What they need to be prepared for is adapting to the pace and expectations of tech candidates, who are used to much faster decisions. By the time a manufacturing-style hiring process reaches a conclusion, the candidate has often already accepted another offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investment funds<\/strong>. This category views every hire as a line in unit economics \u2014 an expense that must be justified and a component of the product\u2019s economics. Decisions are heavily data-driven, with a focus on rapid scaling. The main risk here is mechanically transferring patterns from portfolio tech startups into Defence tech, where things work differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other sectors <\/strong>(aviation, automotive, logistics). These industries tend to prioritise process reliability and proven expertise, although each has its own specifics. Their common challenge is that the tech environment can feel chaotic until they become accustomed to it, which means companies should account for a significant adaptation period from the outset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When these five \u201cschools\u201d \u2014 or five leaders from different industries \u2014 sit down together inside one company to align on hiring decisions, they are not debating facts. They are debating worldviews. And this is not something resolved in a single strategy session over coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where it actually shows up<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

These clashes of cultures and worldviews rarely explode into one major conflict. Instead, they quietly surface through dozens of small decisions. In Defence tech hiring, misunderstandings usually emerge around several key areas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n