Nikolay Penev leads CreateFuture's office in Bulgaria, a market that has become one of Europe's more interesting tech talent stories. We sat down with him to talk about why the country keeps attracting international companies, what's changed since the outsourcing boom of the 2000s, and where Bulgaria fits into the wider conversation about AI.
Bulgaria was long known as an outsourcing destination. Has that reputation kept up with reality?
Bulgaria was popular fifteen years ago, but what drove interest then isn't what drives it today. We’ve moved far beyond traditional cost arbitrage. While our operating environment remains highly competitive, international businesses choose Bulgaria today for high-value consultancy, architectural ownership, and deep domain expertise. Companies don't come here to save on headcount; they come because our engineers take end-to-end responsibility for complex products and deliver tangible business outcomes.
What kept demand strong once remote work made it possible to hire almost anywhere?
When global remote hiring accelerated, companies could theoretically chase the lowest day rate anywhere on the globe. Demand for Bulgarian talent remained resilient because our value proposition isn't built on price. It's built on a product and consultancy mindset. Backed by strong economic fundamentals and continuous ecosystem investment, Bulgarian engineering teams operate as strategic co-creators rather than downstream execution resources.
Where does the strength of the talent pool actually come from?
Our technical talent pool is grounded in an elite, world-leading STEM culture with exceptional expertise in computer science and advanced mathematics. Few people outside tech realise that Bulgaria actually founded the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in 1989. Overall, we rank #5 in the world all-time for total IOI medals. And when you adjust for population, Bulgaria ranks #1 in the world per capita in gold medals in Informatics. In mathematics (IMO) alone, our students have brought home over 300 international medals.
This pipeline starts early in our specialised maths and informatics high schools, a system I graduated from myself. Stacks and frameworks evolve every few years, but that deep mathematical and algorithmic grounding is permanent. It’s why Bulgarian engineers master complex system architectures, compiler design, and generative AI models significantly faster than developers trained purely on high-level frameworks.
Is this a Sofia story, or is the talent spread more widely across the country?
Sofia is undeniably our primary innovation engine and economic powerhouse, concentrating the country's highest density of enterprise talent and research infrastructure. At the same time, regional hubs like Plovdiv, Varna, and Burgas have matured rapidly over the past decade. They offer high-caliber engineering communities that give us the agility to scale across multiple locations while drawing from distinct local talent pools.
How would you describe the way Bulgarian engineers actually work?
Bulgarian engineering culture combines technical craftsmanship with a proactive, inquisitive mindset. Our engineers don't execute requirements uncritically. They actively challenge assumptions to uncover cleaner, more scalable architectures. Because nearly our entire local tech sector serves international enterprises, our teams operate with seamless cross-cultural fluency, high autonomy, and direct accountability to global clients.
AI is obviously part of every tech conversation right now. What's actually happening in Bulgaria on that front?
More than people outside the country probably realise. Bulgaria is establishing itself as Eastern Europe’s deep-tech and AI capital. The establishment of INSAIT - developed in partnership with world-class institutions like ETH Zurich - has anchored elite global researchers and top-tier PhD talent directly in Sofia.
This is combined with initiatives like the upcoming AI Factory under the EU’s Innovation and Sovereignty Fund in Sofia Tech Park, literally steps from our front door. Bulgaria is firmly positioned at the epicentre of European AI research and compute infrastructure.
And inside CreateFuture specifically, how are your own engineers adapting to AI tools?
Looking at where the tech market is going, AI is not going to replace good engineers - it is going to make them much stronger. Nowadays, AI can easily generate standard code, but that actually makes top-tier talent even more important. The real competitive advantage still comes from deep domain experience, strong system architecture, and complex problem-solving. These are things an LLM simply cannot do on its own. By letting our AI workflows handle the repetitive, lower-level work, our engineers can step up and focus on the hard parts: system security, scalability, and business logic.
This combination of elite people and modern AI gives us a huge advantage, especially in demanding fields like iGaming. In iGaming, you deal with massive user concurrency, sub-millisecond latency, strict regulations, and real-time fraud detection. Generic AI tools cannot handle this complexity alone. But when you take our automated delivery workflows and combine them with CreateFuture’s years of real-world iGaming experience, our teams can build and modernise complex gaming platforms much faster, delivering top-quality code without sacrificing performance or compliance.
What are the ambitions of CreateFuture in Bulgaria?
Doubling our footprint from 40 to 80 team members over the next year is a capability expansion, not just a headcount milestone.
My vision is for our Sofia office to serve as CreateFuture’s global AI blueprint and Centre of Excellence. We have the mandate and autonomy to pioneer next-generation delivery methodologies here, validate them on high-stakes client challenges, and roll them out across the rest of the enterprise. Locally, we are building an environment of unmatched ownership where senior talent comes to do the most impactful work of their careers.
Finally, if someone came to visit you in Sofia, where would you send them to eat, and what should they actually go and see?
For dining, skip international spots and experience authentic Bulgarian cuisine. Visit a traditional mehana (local tavern) to sample authentic Bulgarian salads - built around our exceptional local produce - and slow-cooked stews or soups.
For sightseeing, explore beyond Sofia. Within a two-hour drive from the capital, you can experience ancient Roman amphitheatres, medieval fortresses, alpine peaks, or coastal preserves. I always recommend skiing in Bansko, hiking the Seven Rila Lakes, or discovering the wilder northern Black Sea coastline.
Whether you are visiting to discuss global tech strategy or explore the country, our doors at CreateFuture in Sofia are wide open - and I'd be glad to show you around myself!
Meet the author
Nikolay Penev is General Manager of CreateFuture’s European Delivery Centre in Sofia. With over 15 years in tech leadership, including roles at Sigma Software, Endava, and Experian, he specialises in building technology hubs from the ground up and scaling engineering organisations that deliver complex software solutions to clients worldwide.
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