Английский язык в белорусских IT-командах: как его оценить и чего ожидать от разных ролей

We hear a version of the same story from new clients every few months. The Minsk team’s pull requests are clean, the Jira comments are detailed, the documentation is tidy. Then the first video calls happen, and people barely speak. Someone at headquarters asks us, a little nervously, whether the team really understands what they’re being told.

Usually it does. Belarusian engineers tend to read and write English better than they speak it, and the gap shows most in the first few weeks. Set things up sensibly and it mostly closes within a few months.

Below: what the data says, what level each role really needs, how to check it in a normal interview, and what to do once the team is hired.

What the Data Says

Belarus lands in the middle of international comparisons. The latest English proficiency index for Belarus gives the country a score of 533 and 41st place, inside the «moderate proficiency» band. Minsk, where most of the tech talent lives, scores above the national figure.

The breakdown by skill is more telling. Reading scores highest, listening and writing sit in the middle, and speaking trails well behind. That matches what clients tell us about their engineers: docs are fine, written updates are clear, fast-moving discussions take some getting used to.

Tech people usually beat the national average. They’ve spent years in English docs, error messages, Stack Overflow threads and changelogs, so reading and writing get a daily workout. Speaking is another story: plenty of them never had to speak English at work until their first international job.

A Quick Guide to CEFR Levels

«Intermediate» and «upper-intermediate» on a CV could mean almost anything. The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) at least puts everyone on the same scale, and the official CEFR level descriptions go into each level in detail. For engineering hires, you’ll mostly care about three:

• B1. Reads technical docs fine and writes tickets people can follow. Keeps up in a slow, clear conversation about familiar things, but gets lost once the pace picks up or the topic turns abstract.
• B2. Comfortable in standups and technical discussions. Can explain a decision or push back with a question without much strain. Enough for most day-to-day work on an international team.
• C1. Fluent, and can shift tone to fit the room. Presents, negotiates, disagrees politely. You can put them in front of clients and senior stakeholders.

In practice, most engineering hires come down to this: solid B2, or still nearer B1? On paper you’ll barely see it. On a call you will.

What to Expect by Role

Set one English bar for the whole team and it’ll misfire one way or the other. Either you lose good engineers, or someone with shaky English ends up on client calls. The table below shows what we usually see working for each role. Use it to set expectations; it isn’t a hard cut-off.

Backend or data engineer	B1–B2	Reading docs, writing pull requests and tickets, async chat	Live discussions of trade-offs
Frontend or mobile developer	B1–B2	The same, plus talking through UI details with designers	Quick clarifications on calls
QA engineer	B1–B2	Clear bug reports and test cases	Explaining edge cases out loud
DevOps or SRE	B2	Incident updates, runbooks, coordination	Real-time incident calls
Team lead or tech lead	B2–C1	Standups, planning, updates for stakeholders	Pushing back politely
Engineering manager, PM or BA	C1	Requirements, negotiation, client meetings	Rarely, if screened well
Sales, customer success, support	C1 and above	Talking and writing to customers every day	Tone and nuance in writing

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Customer-facing roles are a different story. There, English basically is the job, so both the bar and the interview change. We cover those roles in our guide to hiring sales, support and finance staff in Belarus.

How to Assess English Without a Formal Exam

Why Certificates and Self-Ratings Aren’t Enough

We’d put little weight on certificates. One from five years ago says nothing about how the person copes with a heated technical discussion now. Self-ratings are even shakier. They tell you more about character than English: confident B1s call themselves upper-intermediate, modest B2s sell themselves short. And online written tests? Handy, but they skip speaking almost entirely, which is the one skill you really need to see.

A 20-Minute Check Inside the Technical Interview

You don’t need a separate language test. Just run part of the technical interview in English, roughly like this:

1. Warm-up (5 min). What was their last project, and what was their part in it? You’re listening for how easily the words come.
2. Tech talk (5 min). Have them walk you through a design decision, or a nasty bug they chased down. Do they have the words? Can they build an argument?
3. Listening (5 min). Describe a small feature out loud and leave one bit vague on purpose. Good candidates spot it and ask. Weaker ones guess.
4. Writing (5 min). A quick status update or bug report, the way they’d actually post it in Slack.

This usually fits into round two or three. Our step-by-step guide to hiring IT specialists in Belarus shows how the rounds usually fit together.

A Simple Scoring Rubric

Understanding	Needs several repetitions	Understands with occasional clarification	Understands on first pass
Clarity	Hard to follow	Clear, with some pauses	Clear and structured
Technical vocabulary	Searches for basic terms	Uses the right terms most of the time	Precise and natural
Asking questions	Avoids asking	Asks when prompted	Asks without prompting

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Score for one thing: do they understand you, and can they get themselves understood? An accent or a dropped “the” here and there won’t change how well someone works with your team.

Watch your own English, too. Talk fast, throw in idioms or internal jokes, and almost anyone will come across weaker than they are. Short sentences and one question at a time get you a truer read. The US government’s guide to plain language recommends the same approach for anyone communicating with a broad audience.

Real Problems vs Things That Fix Themselves

Two things should worry you. A candidate who still can’t follow a simple requirement after you’ve rephrased it. And one who never asks a clarifying question and just guesses. Either way, you’ll pay for it later in rework.

Hesitation, a thin speaking vocabulary, a strong accent: those are different. Put the person on a team that works in English every day and they usually get much better within three to six months.

After Hiring: Helping the Team Communicate

Put someone in a meeting in their second language and they’ll usually say less than they know. It isn’t a knowledge problem. Speaking up just feels riskier. Research on language in global companies makes two practical points: most global work needs a good working vocabulary rather than native fluency, and native speakers can help a great deal just by slowing down.

Here’s what has worked in the teams we support:

• Agenda before the meeting, short written recap after. People come better prepared and can check they got it right.
• Record demos and the bigger discussions. Rewatching something at your own pace helps more than people expect.
• Ask the quieter engineers by name. Then wait a few seconds longer than feels natural.
• For the first couple of months, pair new hires with a lead whose English is strong enough to jump in when a call goes sideways.

Writing things down first pays off twice if you’re spread across time zones. For a working example, see the handbook on asynchronous communication for remote work from a large all-remote company, which walks through how they set it up.

Native speakers on the other side have more influence here than they realise. Slow down a little, skip the sports metaphors, put decisions in writing. Most people adjust quickly once someone points it out. They just never noticed before.

Speaking only really improves through live conversation, which is why overlapping hours matter. Belarus shares most of its working day with Europe; we go into this in our article on making Belarus work alongside US and EU offices.

Paying for English Lessons

Paid English classes are a common perk in Belarusian IT, and engineers actually use them. If you’re funding something longer or pricier, a training agreement can tie the cost to the employee staying for an agreed period.

The rules for these agreements, and what makes them enforceable, are explained in our article on retention tools that hold up in Belarus.

A note on documents. Your team can work in English every day, but the binding versions of local acts, such as the internal labour regulations, are normally in Russian or Belarusian.

Flag this at onboarding so nobody’s caught off guard. A lot of clients also add a short English summary of the main rules alongside the official versions. Our guide to which company policies apply to EOR employees explains how the two versions relate.

Does English Affect Salary?

Yes, and the more senior the role, the bigger the effect. Engineers with good spoken English and client experience get plenty of interest from foreign employers, and their salary expectations show it. There’s an upside for you too: someone who can run client calls alone takes work off your managers. Worth keeping in mind when you put the offer together.

The premium is biggest for team leads and managers. To check where an offer sits, use our 2026 benchmarks for Belarus IT salaries.

Common Mistakes

• One English bar for every role.
• Passing on a strong engineer over an accent or a few grammar slips.
• Trusting a written quiz or a certificate and nothing else.
• Expecting lively debate in week one when nobody’s made room for it.
• Never checking in on progress once onboarding is over.

How EOR.by Helps

When we recruit for a client, we agree the English level for each role at the start and check it in interviews with a short practical exercise similar to the one described above. Our IT recruitment services cover everything from sourcing candidates to the offer.

Once the team is in place, we can also set up language-course benefits and the training agreements that go with them as part of our HR support.

FAQ

How good is English in Belarusian tech teams?

Reading and writing are generally good. Speaking varies more and depends mostly on how much the person has worked with international teams before.

What English level does a software developer need?

B2 is comfortable for most engineering roles, and a strong B1 can be enough where communication is mostly written. Leads need B2 to C1, and client-facing roles need C1 or higher.

How can I test a candidate’s English in an interview?

Hold part of the technical interview in English. Have the candidate describe a project, explain a technical decision, ask questions about a requirement you describe and write a short status update. About twenty minutes is enough.

Is B2 enough for a developer working with a US team?

Usually, yes. A B2 developer can take part in standups and technical discussions, especially if the US side speaks clearly, shares agendas and confirms decisions in writing.

Can I make a specific English level a job requirement?

You can state it in the job description and the vacancy and check it during recruitment. Ask your provider how it should be reflected in the employee’s documents.

Should I pay for English lessons for my Belarus team?

Many companies do. It’s a relatively cheap benefit and it helps communication. For bigger investments, a training agreement can link the cost to the employee staying for an agreed period.

Summing Up

After the first few calls, clients often underestimate how good their Belarus team’s English is. Decide on the level each role needs, check it with a short exercise during interviews, and give people some structure and time to get comfortable speaking. In most teams, the quiet phase passes within a few months.

Planning to hire in Belarus? Tell us about the roles and the English level each one needs, and we’ll include it in screening from the first interview.