MacPaw: From 1% Awareness to One of Ukraine’s Strongest Tech Employers
MacPaw is a Ukrainian product company whose macOS and iOS apps are used by tens of millions of people worldwide. The company takes pride in its Ukrainian roots and believes that people and technology achieve their best work together. MacPaw has built a culture of openness, growth, and support; offers flexible work formats; operates offices in Kyiv and Boston; and employs more than 490 specialists.
What the company asked for
Back in 2017, MacPaw’s employer brand barely existed on the Ukrainian market. Awareness among macOS/iOS developers was extremely low, the company had little presence in tech communities, and competition for engineers was fierce.
MacPaw set three ambitious goals:
- Build a strong employer brand for a product-driven tech company in Ukraine.
- Boost awareness among macOS/iOS developers, QA specialists, and Product Managers – the company’s core hiring groups.
- Strengthen differentiation and make recruitment easier in a crowded market.
What we did
1. Built visibility through partnerships
The foundation was simple: be present where the community already is. During the first years, MacPaw focused on win-win collaborations with tech groups and educational initiatives. The company partnered with:
- CocoaHeads Ukraine community
- INSCIENCE conference
- SpinOffHack – a national 3-day hackathon
- KPI-Open – a major programming olympiad
- Media Hack Weekend, the largest hackathon in Ukraine
- Bilka, the student community space at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute
- …and dozens more high-impact initiatives.
These collaborations opened the door to professional communities that became the primary driver of awareness among engineers.
2. Grew expertise by building communities
When we noticed the lack of structured product expertise in Ukraine, we launched Product Tank Kyiv, a local chapter of the global Mind the Product community.
Within a year, the community grew to 1,400+ specialists, hosted regular meetups, and became a learning hub for product professionals.
This not only elevated the product community in Ukraine – it also dramatically reduced time-to-hire for MacPaw.
3. Built engineering culture through internal hackathons – HackaMacaThon
MacPaw launched a series of bright, experimental internal hackathons that soon became a signature trait of its engineering culture.
HackaMacaThon #1: 50 specialists, 12 projects, 48 hours, one sleepless night inside an empty Olympic Stadium.
HackaMacaThon #2: A construction site overlooking Kyiv as the backdrop – 11 projects built, including a Waste Sorting Assistant and a real arcade machine.
HackaMacaThon #3: Held inside the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Museum – the perfect setting for day-and-night coding marathons.
HackaMacaThon #4 “Out of the box” focused on improving office life and daily team workflows.
HackaMacaThon #5: 48 hours of ideas and prototypes that inspired new internal tools.
HackaMacaThon #6: A completely non-technical hackathon – a bold move that proved creativity in the team stretches far beyond code.
These hackathons turned into cultural rituals that celebrated creativity, autonomy, and engineering curiosity.
4. Shared MacPaw’s culture through CSR initiatives – MacPaw Cares
MacPaw expressed its values and social mission through MacPaw Cares – the company’s CSR direction supporting educational, cultural, environmental, and charity projects.
The program helped:
- demonstrate genuine care for the community;
- reinforce the perception of MacPaw as a values-driven employer;
- attract candidates for whom social impact matters;
- create additional touchpoints and storytelling opportunities around culture.
- CSR became an authentic way to show who MacPaw is through real actions.
What we achieved
Five years of consistent, systemic work brought remarkable outcomes:
- MacPaw entered the TOP-10 Best IT Employers in the annual Ernst & Young “Best Employer – 2020” study.
- The company ranked #2 among the strongest HR brands in IT according to Djinni users – exactly among the target groups we worked with for years.
“In five years of active employer brand work at MacPaw, we never once applied for awards or rankings. We focused entirely on internal metrics: team loyalty, eNPS, and the percentage of roles closed through referrals. And then suddenly we appeared in two independent rankings at once. A moment of real pride – and a credit to the whole team.”
– Kateryna Drobot, Employer Brand Manager at MacPaw (2016–2021), Founder of Lineup Bureau.
Co-creation lineup
At Lineup Bureau, we believe in long-term partnerships and co-creation. Below are the people whose contributions shaped MacPaw’s employer brand.
Employer Branding & Communications:
Employer Brand Manager – Kateryna Drobot
Tech Brand Manager – Kseniia Rastvorova
Head of Events & Internal Communications – Tatiana Tymchii
Internal Communications Specialist – Tania Soloviova
Event Manager – Nataliia Babii
СSR Manager – Anna Manukhina
Project & Operations:
Project Office Manager – Liudmyla Pavlenko
MacPaw Space Program Manager – Nadia Kolesnykova
Leadership:
CEO & Founder – Oleksandr Kosovan
CTIO & co-founder – Vira Tkachenko
Operations Lead – Sofia Dvoynos
HR Team:
Olga Ostapovych, Olga Mwanaton, Mariia Hryboiedova
Community contributors:
Engineers, speakers, mentors, volunteers, hackathon participants – everyone who shared their knowledge and helped build this story 🫰
Lessons for the market
- An employer brand grows when it reflects real culture, not just campaigns.
- Communities are the strongest awareness engine for technical roles.
- Internal rituals shape the employer brand as much as external presence.
- Long-term consistency creates impact that no quick tactic can replicate.
The MacPaw case proves it: when strategy, culture, and consistency work together, the employer brand becomes a true competitive edge.
At Lineup Bureau, we help companies build systems exactly like this – deep, honest, and effective.
If you're ready to strengthen your employer brand, reach out.
