From Karaköy Workshop to 200-Person Employer: How One Istanbul Founder Is Rewriting the City's Hiring Playbook

Dokuma Labs hired its 200th employee last week. Three years ago, it had four. The company, which develops AI-assisted quality-control software for garment manufacturers, operates out of a converted warehouse on Tersane Caddesi in Karaköy — and its growth curve has become a reference point in conversations about where Istanbul's white-collar job market is actually heading in 2026.

The timing matters. Istanbul's broader labour picture is complicated. Turkey's official unemployment rate held at 8.4 percent in April 2026, according to TÜİK data released in June, but youth unemployment — the 15-to-24 cohort — sits closer to 18 percent, a stubborn figure that has barely moved in two years despite a string of government incentive programs. Meanwhile, inflation, which the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey has pushed hard to tame since late 2024, has reshaped salary expectations dramatically; mid-level software engineers in Istanbul now negotiate starting packages north of 85,000 Turkish lira per month, up from roughly 45,000 lira at the start of 2024.

Against that backdrop, Dokuma Labs has done something unusual: it stopped requiring university degrees for the majority of its technical roles in January 2025. The company instead built a twelve-week internal training programme it calls the Atölye Rotası — loosely, Workshop Path — that recruits candidates directly from Istanbul's vocational high schools and from İŞKUR, the national employment agency, which has a busy district office in Bağcılar on the city's European side. Graduates of the programme earn a certified credential recognised by the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, and about 70 percent of Dokuma's current workforce came through it.

A Model Other Employers Are Watching

The approach has drawn attention from larger players. Three firms in the organised industrial zone in Esenyurt — two apparel manufacturers and one logistics company — have contacted Dokuma Labs about licensing the Atölye Rotası curriculum. The Istanbul Development Agency, ISTKA, listed the programme in its May 2026 quarterly report on workforce innovation as a case study for SMEs seeking to reduce dependence on an increasingly expensive graduate labour pool.

The skills-first model is not without critics. Some recruiters argue that bypassing degree requirements creates liability gaps in technical roles, particularly where client contracts with European garment brands require certified quality-assurance personnel. Dokuma has responded by pursuing ISO 9001 recertification for its training pipeline — a process expected to conclude by September 2026.

What makes the company's story locally instructive is geography. Karaköy, once dominated by ship chandlers and hardware merchants, has over the past decade accumulated a dense cluster of tech-adjacent startups, design studios and co-working spaces. Kolektif House operates a large campus two blocks from Dokuma's building on Bankalar Caddesi. Startups in the neighbourhood frequently share candidates, and informal referral networks have become a meaningful hiring channel — perhaps more so than formal job boards like Kariyer.net, which several Dokuma hiring managers say they use mainly as a backstop.

What Comes Next for Workers and Job-Seekers

For Istanbullus navigating the job market this summer, the practical signal from Dokuma Labs is straightforward: credentials matter less than demonstrable skill sets in sectors where employers are growing fast enough to absorb training costs. The company plans to open a second Atölye Rotası cohort in September, targeting 40 candidates, with preference given to applicants from Gaziosmanpaşa and Sultangazi — two districts with persistently high youth joblessness rates on the European side of the city.

ISTKA's next grant cycle, with applications closing August 15, includes a dedicated funding stream for companies running certified in-house training programmes. Dokuma intends to apply. If it secures support, it has indicated it will expand the programme to include Anatolian side candidates for the first time, likely drawing from vocational schools in Kartal and Pendik.

The European market turbulence — heatwaves disrupting supply chains in France and Germany, security anxiety rippling through boardrooms from Monaco to Warsaw — has, paradoxically, strengthened the case for keeping more production and quality-control capacity in Istanbul. That calculus suits Dokuma's pitch perfectly. The city, the company is betting, is about to need a lot more workers who know how to use it.