AgriTech is a fast-growing and high-impact sector reshaping how the world grows, moves, and consumes food. The global digital agriculture market is projected to grow from approximately $25 billion in 2025 to over $60 billion by 2030, representing a healthy CAGR of 10.10%.

But as more startups and enterprises jump into agriculture innovation, one challenge keeps slowing progress: the talent gap.

There is a shortage of developers who can bridge the gap between agriculture, AI, and embedded systems. The truth is: AgriTech isn’t like building an app for food delivery or e-commerce. It’s a deeply physical, seasonal, and environmentally complex domain. To succeed here, your tech team needs to understand more than code.

Why AgriTech Is Different (and More Demanding)

Modern agriculture touches everything from edge computing and sensor networks to machine learning and climate modeling. It’s interdisciplinary by default. That means software teams must often collaborate with:

• Hardware engineers working with drones, robots, or field sensors
• Data scientists trained in environmental systems
• Agronomists and soil scientists

Read: Remote software developers or on-site team – which programmers are more effective and why?

A smart irrigation system, for example, isn’t just a mobile dashboard. It’s an AI model trained on historical climate patterns, hardware calibration protocols, moisture sensors, and real-time weather data. Poor understanding of any piece can compromise the whole system.

Without context, developers might over-engineer the wrong features or ignore key constraints like:

• Limited internet connectivity in rural areas
• Seasonal use cases and long feedback cycles
• The need for high fault tolerance and field-ready reliability

What Skills (and Mindsets) Modern AgriTech Teams Need

To close the talent gap in AgriTech, software teams need more than full-stack fluency. They need:

1. Contextual Thinking. Developers must grasp the real-world farming environment: how a farmer uses the app in the field, what data matters most to an agronomist, or how a broken device affects harvest timelines.

2. Embedded Systems Experience. AgriTech is hardware-heavy. Familiarity with IoT, firmware updates, real-time systems, and power-efficient architecture is foundational.

3. AI/ML + Edge Capabilities. Many AgriTech applications rely on localized inference, where models run on edge devices (not cloud servers) to detect pests, analyze soil, or predict irrigation needs. This requires experience optimizing ML models for constrained environments.

4. Agile, Cross-Functional Collaboration. Building an AI-powered greenhouse system involves software engineers, horticulturists, data scientists, and electronics specialists. Your dev team must know how to speak across disciplines and iterate in uncertain conditions.

Read: The Role of Agile Methodology in Startup Software Development

The Role of Software in Modern AgriTech

Software lies at the heart of today’s agricultural innovation, and in 2025, its impact grows stronger. Consider these key areas:

• AI-Powered Crop Monitoring: Machine learning systems process drone imagery and sensor data to detect early signs of disease or pest infestations, giving farmers critical intervention time.
• IoT Smart Farming: Systems that track moisture, temperature, and soil conditions drive automated irrigation and fertilization, fostering precision agriculture and reducing resource usage.
• Farm Management Platforms: Software suites help farms plan, track, and optimize daily operations from planting to harvest.
• Predictive Analytics: Analytics tools forecast weather-driven risks, yield outcomes, and pest pressure, helping farmers make proactive choices.
• Digital Twins & Virtual Farming: Simulated farm environments let agronomists test irrigation strategies or crop rotations virtually, spotting outcomes before making real-world changes.
• Blockchain in Supply Chains: Traceability platforms use blockchains to ensure food safety, authenticate origin, and build consumer trust.

Trends and Innovations

• Integration of Robotics and Automation: Software controls autonomous farm equipment for planting, harvesting, weeding, and spraying, reducing labor costs and increasing efficiency.

• Mobile and Cloud-Based Solutions: Increasingly, agritech software is mobile-friendly and cloud-based, enabling farmers to manage operations remotely and access real-time data on the go.

• Cybersecurity Focus: As agriculture becomes more data-driven, software development emphasizes securing sensitive farm data and ensuring privacy in cloud environments.

• Agri-Fintech Platforms: Software facilitates digital payments, credit access, and insurance for farmers, improving financial inclusion and reducing dependency on intermediaries.

Why Software Development Is Core to AgriTech Innovation

Software powers the decision-making behind every smart greenhouse, drone system, or crop analytics dashboard.

Development teams are central to delivering the data, predictions, and control systems that enable modern agriculture to function effectively.

As the industry expands, software teams that understand agricultural workflows, data constraints, and real-time feedback loops are the ones building lasting impact.

At JetSoftPro, we believe that building for AgriTech means building with a full-system mindset.

We’ve supported AgriTech startups with MVPs, backend systems, and custom AI models as well as long-term enterprise deployments requiring scalable, fault-tolerant software.

The post Software Development in AgriTech: Why Software Teams Must Understand More Than Code appeared first on JetSoftPro | Custom Technology Solutions & Software Development.

The impact was severe: Nvidia, a leading chipmaker, lost $600 billion in market value—the largest single-day drop in U.S. stock market history. The sell-off also affected other major tech companies, with Microsoft declining 2.14% and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) falling over 4%. 

What’s driving DeepSeek’s success, and how is it reshaping the AI industry while challenging the belief that quantum computing is essential to its future? Let’s dive in. 

How DeepSeek R1 Works: From The First Model Launch To Market Breakthroughs 

DeepSeek is a Chinese company founded in July 2023 by entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng, who runs a hedge fund, High-Flyer Capital, that uses AI to identify patterns in stock prices. Notably, Wenfeng is reported to have stockpiled around 50,000 Nvidia A100 chips, which have been banned from export to China since September 2022. Experts believe this stockpile played a crucial role in developing DeepSeek’s powerful AI models by combining these advanced chips with cheaper, less sophisticated ones. 

After launching its initial set of models — DeepSeek Coder, LLM, and Chat — in November 2023, the company made waves with its cost-efficient DeepSeek-V2 model. This general-purpose system, capable of analyzing both text and images, was much cheaper to run than competitors at the time, forcing companies like ByteDance and Alibaba to reduce their prices. 

In December 2024, DeepSeek released its powerful large language model, V3. Internal tests showed that V3 outperformed both open-source models like Meta’s Llama and API-based models like GPT-4. Remarkably, V3’s development cost just $5.58 million — much less than GPT-4’s $100 million. It was trained using 2,000 specialized NVIDIA H800 GPUs, far fewer than the 16,000 H100 chips used by other companies. 

In January 2025, DeepSeek introduced R1, a “reasoning” model based on V3. R1 excels at tasks requiring complex context, like reading comprehension and strategic planning. While it takes a bit longer to process solutions, it is more reliable in areas such as science, math, and physics. DeepSeek R1 works on par with OpenAI’s o1 model in terms of performance.

DeepSeek also developed reasoning versions of smaller open-source models, making them available for use on home computers. 

However, there is a notable drawback to DeepSeek’s R1 and V3 models. As Chinese-developed AI, they are bound by China’s internet regulations, which ensure that the AI’s responses align with “core socialist values.” For instance, R1 avoids answering questions related to sensitive topics like Taiwan’s autonomy.  

READ: 9 Scary Facts About AI for Business 

Why DeepSeek R1 Works Good? Two Innovative Techniques Driving The AI Revolution 

DeepSeek’s success comes from achieving outstanding results with fewer resources, thanks to two groundbreaking techniques. 

The first technique revolves around the mathematical concept of “sparsity.” Sparsity can manifest in various ways in AI models. It can involve eliminating unnecessary data that doesn’t affect the model’s output, or in more advanced cases, removing entire sections of a neural network while still maintaining the model’s effectiveness. DeepSeek is an example of the second approach. 

For example, DeepSeek V3 model has around 671 billion parameters or “weights”, which determine how the model processes input and generates output, like text or images. However, only a small fraction is used for each input. Predicting which parameters are necessary for a specific task is a challenge, but DeepSeek solves this with an innovative technique that pre-identifies the necessary parameters, allowing the model to focus its training efforts on only those. This approach leads to significant reductions in training time compared to traditional methods. 

The second technique involves a mathematical concept known as “multi-head latent attention.” In DeepSeek V3 model, this technique is applied to compress the memory cache, which holds the most recent input text of a prompt — one of the largest consumers of memory and bandwidth. This approach enhances memory management and reduces the memory load, leading to better overall performance. 

How Could DeepSeek R1 Disrupt The AI Industry?  

DeepSeek’s open-source approach is a wake-up call for the whole AI industry. Released under the MIT License, its models are freely available for download, modification, and commercial use. As of January 27, 2025, developers on Hugging Face have created over 500 derivative models of DeepSeek R1 model, with a combined 2.5 million downloads. 

For tech companies relying on proprietary AI, this presents a significant threat. Freely available AI models could erode profit margins and shift investor attention away from big tech, as the value of proprietary systems diminishes in favor of more accessible, cost-efficient solutions. 

However, where some see disruption, others see opportunity. Small AI startups, researchers, and independent developers now have access to cutting-edge AI without the massive infrastructure costs. For consumers, this could mean AI models running directly on personal devices — laptops, phones, and wearables — eliminating the need for expensive cloud-based subscriptions. 

More importantly, DeepSeek’s success challenges the long-standing belief that AI’s future depends solely on quantum computing. Historically, quantum computing has been seen as the key to solving AI’s most complex challenges, such as optimization and large-scale problem-solving, due to its ability to process vast amounts of data simultaneously through quantum superposition and entanglement. However, DeepSeek’s breakthrough demonstrates that through innovations in chip design, optimization techniques, and algorithm development, classical systems are capable of delivering powerful AI models at scale.  

As quantum computing remains a distant reality for most, focusing on accessible, affordable advancements in classical computing may be the most pragmatic path forward for AI innovation. 

READ: AI in 2024: Overview of Key AI Innovations and Their Impact on the Tech Industry 

JetSoftPro: Leading the Charge in AI Innovation 

At JetSoftPro, we harness the power of cutting-edge AI advancements, such as DeepSeek’s groundbreaking models, to deliver impactful and scalable solutions. By focusing on efficiency, cost optimization, and strict data privacy, we help businesses successfully integrate advanced AI technologies. 

Contact us to learn how we can help you unlock the full potential of AI for your business. 

The post How DeepSeek R1 Works and Changes the AI Market appeared first on JetSoftPro | Custom Technology Solutions & Software Development.

The technical skills of Ukrainian developers, the ability to work hard for results, and the readiness to seek creative solutions for complex challenges are well known worldwide. However, there is a group of soft skills that most industry representatives still need to develop further. 

We were curious to explore the methods Ukrainian developers choose to become more attractive service providers, and we noticed a phenomenon: they go to job interviews without the intention of getting a job but to practice soft skills. We created a questionnaire to learn more about this trend and unexpectedly found another level of the problem – the industry is developing blindly. The average developer poorly understands the market dynamics and lacks up-to-date information about the technology sphere. As a result, many of them feel unconfident and lose the competitive battle for clients, despite being capable of delivering the desired results at a technical level. Currently, most developers are addressing this issue independently – once again, through job interviews. 

Such an approach, on the one hand, slows down the industry’s development and, on the other hand, forces companies to spend more on recruitment, which turns into a center for providing market information to individual seekers. We invite you to delve into the details and study this situation further. 

Key Findings 

1. 74% of tech professionals are actively improving their soft skills.
2. 54% of tech professionals are enhancing their soft skills through online courses and webinars. This is surprising, as these skills are typically considered practical.
3. Among the key soft skills in which employees feel confident, leadership qualities stand out at 44%. At the same time, only 6% mentioned initiative and 5% mentioned empathy among their soft skills, which indicates a lack of clear understanding of soft skills concepts among the tech specialists.
4. Over a quarter (27%) of tech specialists attend job interviews without the intention of further employment. This means that 27% of recruitment expenses allocated to interviews are spent in vain.
5. Only 51% of tech specialists are satisfied with the level of support for the development of soft skills in their companies.
6. Only a quarter of employees (25%) are ready to continue working in a company that does not invest in the development of their soft skills.

Overview of the soft skills landscape in the Ukrainian tech sector 

Soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving, have become crucial factors in the hiring process within the tech industry, which is why they are also called core skills. 

As a result, 93% of tech professionals consistently or occasionally highlight their soft skills on their CVs. Among the skills in which employees feel confident, teamwork and time management lead the way at 67%. Leadership qualities are notable for 44% of respondents, while only 6% emphasize initiative and 5% mention empathy. This suggests a potential lack of a clear understanding of the concept of soft skills among tech specialists in Ukraine. 

This can be explained by the fact that half of Ukrainian tech companies neglect the development of soft skills of their employees. Only 51% of tech specialists are satisfied with the level of support for the development of soft skills in their companies. This forces specialists to look for alternative, not always optimal methods of improving their skills. 

Beat the system: What methods do tech professionals use for developing their soft skills? 

74% of Ukrainian tech professionals are actively improving their soft skills. Online courses and webinars emerge as the most favored avenues for developing soft skills, as indicated by 54% of respondents. 48% of tech specialists choose practical experience, citing communication with colleagues as an effective personal development method.  

Coach sessions, as a method for soft skills development, do not enjoy significant popularity among Ukrainian tech professionals. This is attributed to the relatively high cost of coaching services in Ukraine, which can reach up to $1000 for a 4-day intensive session. Only 21% of tech workers are willing to invest in a coach, even though the median income for tech specialists reached $2,630 in 2023. 

Seeking a cost-efficient yet impactful method to improve soft skills, developers have devised a creative approach. Over a quarter of tech professionals (27%) have engaged in job interviews without the intent of getting a job, but rather to enhance their confidence and soft skills. 

Here are 5 main reasons why this unique trend is gaining popularity within the Ukrainian tech community: 

• Job interviews are free to attend. 
• Instead of spending hours listening to webinars, tech specialists can boost their soft skills in just one hour through a recruiter interview. 
• You can develop a set of various important soft skills at once, including communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and self-promotion skills. 
• It provides an opportunity to receive high-quality feedback from an experienced industry expert. 
• This is an opportunity to find out what is currently in demand in the market. 

“I believe that attending job interviews can not only improve my soft skills but also help me stay sharp, understand market demands, and learn how to present myself.” – The respondent shared.

What consequences could this have for tech companies? 

Approximately 27% of your financial and time investment in conducting job interviews is wasted! For instance, to fill one position, you engage with 5 recruiters who create job postings, distribute them across various platforms, sift through applicants, and conduct 20-30 interviews. As a result, a quarter of the time is spent filtering out non-target candidates who simply show up for self-improvement and to obtain relevant information about the tech market. For instance, at JetSoftPro, we spend approximately 33 days to hire a candidate. A quarter of these – more than 8 days – will be an obligatory payment for the blind market our company navigates in. 

Unveiling new risks of neglecting soft skills development 

Your company risks losing up to 75% of its employees! Only a quarter of tech specialists are willing to stay with a company that neglects the development of their soft skills.  Moreover, offering such employees’ services to other companies will be a challenging task for you. 

JetSoftPro’s best practices: Your guide to transforming market dynamics 

At JetSoftPro, we deeply understand the value that polished soft skills add to tech professionals. That’s why we have created a comprehensive employee development approach right from the outset of our company’s existence. 

Our best practices could be beneficial for you as well:  

• We’ve developed JetLMS, our unique virtual eLearning system. Within this platform, employees can choose courses based on their interests.  
• We regularly conduct interactive training sessions focused on specific soft skills. For example, in 2023, we organized 32 training courses with JetSoftPro professionals and specially invited experts. 
• Our mentorship program allows every employee to find an experienced mentor who can guide and support their development. 
• We’ve launched the Speakers Club, an internal service aimed at preparing professional speakers. 
• We offer free English courses under the guidance of professional instructors. These classes are conducted twice a week in small groups, with a maximum of five participants. Every six months, we assess the students’ proficiency. 
• Our Performance Review Process enables the evaluation of an employee’s professional achievements over a specific period. It helps identify strengths and areas for growth, receive valuable feedback, and establish goals for professional development within the company. 
• We regularly share market insights with our employees to ensure everyone stays up to date with the latest industry trends. 
• We conduct specialized interviews for our employees to prepare them for client interviews. 

Takeaway  

In Ukraine’s tech landscape, the unconventional use of job interviews for soft skills development underscores a crucial industry gap. Despite 74% of professionals actively seeking improvement, companies lag in providing adequate support. By investing in e-learning platforms, interactive training, mentorship programs, and market insights, companies can empower their workforce, staying attuned to market demands and securing a competitive edge in the dynamic tech sphere. 

The key lesson: investing in soft skills is not just an individual effort but a pivotal factor for tech industry growth and sustained success.  

Background 

JetSoftPro conducted a survey of 100 tech professionals in Ukraine through the DOU platform and tech communities on Facebook and LinkedIn.  The survey data was collected in February 2024. 

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