Mapping Amsterdam’s Up-And-Coming B2B SaaS Engineering Talent
How many engineers does Amsterdam actually host, and which companies serve as the best training grounds for rising B2B SaaS talent?
Great leadership hiring doesn’t always mean only hiring experienced board, C- or VP-level professionals. Sometimes, it starts earlier, by hiring talent that can grow into these roles and evolve as the company progresses. That’s where The Big Search’s Key Talent team comes in, focusing on Director through Senior IC level, to find the strongest emerging leaders.
Therefore, for this piece, we mapped the full Dutch B2B SaaS emerging engineering leadership talent pool, with a specific focus on Amsterdam. As of 2025, Amsterdam has attracted $999 million in VC funding, placing it just behind cities like Stockholm and Zurich. While that marks a drop from previous years, the city remains one of Europe’s fastest-growing tech hubs and a top place for high-performing scaleups and top-tier tech talent.
Amsterdam also hosts the European headquarters of many global tech companies, drawn by the favorable business climate, quality of life, and tax environment. Understanding where emerging engineering leaders are concentrated in Amsterdam gives you a clear view of the city’s top talent hubs and hints at where the next generation of leading companies is likely to emerge.
We began with 1.168 B2B SaaS companies operating in Europe with at least 20 employees. Narrowing in on the Netherlands, we identified 810 top up-and-coming engineers from Principal to Head level spread across 237 companies.
So, how many engineers does Amsterdam actually host and which companies serve as the best training grounds for rising B2B SaaS talent? But more importantly, where should you look if you’re hiring the next generation of engineering leaders?
Where B2B SaaS emerging engineering leaders are located in the Netherlands
As expected, Amsterdam is clearly the gravity well, attracting 60% of all emerging B2B SaaS engineering leaders in the Netherlands. Just look at different reports and you’ll consistently find the city among Europe’s top hubs for tech companies (+5000 startups). This creates a dense concentration of scaleups that keeps pipelines flowing in Amsterdam.
Similarly, according to Dealroom’s State of AI in the Netherlands report, Amsterdam is also the country’s leading AI hub, accounting for 37% of national AI talent – further evidence of its dominance in technical and engineering fields.
For the rest of this piece, we’ll focus on these 486 talents currently based in Amsterdam.
Where Amsterdam-based up-and-coming engineers work now
Most of the companies shaping today’s Amsterdam B2B SaaS engineering landscape are either headquartered there or operating important engineering hubs in the city. Several unicorns, like Adyen, Backbase, Mollie and Elastic, were founded here and remain deeply rooted in the local ecosystem. Others, such as Databricks, have established major European engineering centers in Amsterdam. And some, like Atlassian, Project44, and GitLab, even maintain a registered Dutch entity in the city.
It’s also no coincidence that many of these companies operate in the fintech and enterprise software sectors. They are Amsterdam’s strongest industries, leading in VC investment, the number of high-performing tech companies, and top talent concentration.
Which companies serve as the best schools for the next generation of engineering leaders
If you’re looking for the best “school” for future engineering leaders in Amsterdam, start with Adyen. The fintech company stands out as the top producer of emerging engineering leaders, with 50 talents. No surprise, given that the company is one of the crown jewels of the Amsterdam tech ecosystem and among its most successful and valuable companies.
Beyond Adyen, Amsterdam is home to many household unicorns that originated in the city and dominate the top of the leaderboard. Nebius, Booking.com (though not B2B SaaS), Bird, Backbase, and Mollie all rank among the top eight. The city has also proven particularly successful at scaling companies from seed to unicorn stage, rivaling major hubs such as London and Paris. Naturally, these high-growth tech firms employ and develop a high number of early-career engineers.
Regarding global giants like Google, Uber, IBM, or Microsoft, they run substantial Amsterdam offices or engineering centers. Thus, they often serve as early-career training grounds before engineers pivot toward the B2B SaaS world.
Finally, “old economy” companies such as ING, ABN AMRO, and Rabobank also play a major feeder role. They operate large-scale tech organizations, hire substantial numbers of junior engineers, and train them on modern cloud and DevOps platforms. Despite their traditional roots, these banks have become structured training grounds for early-career engineers, running critical, high-availability software across payments, risk, security, and data. Concentrated in Amsterdam and Utrecht, they maintain strong alumni networks that continue to feed the Dutch B2B SaaS ecosystem.
Where can you find the next generation of B2B SaaS engineers in Amsterdam?
~60% of these Netherlands-based emerging profiles are based in Amsterdam, which already gives you a clear sense of the city’s scale and importance within the national B2B SaaS ecosystem.
The current hubs are a blend of Amsterdam-born companies and international players with headquarters or significant footprints in Amsterdam. The feeder list is more varied, pulling in old-economy actors, global organizations and even Amsterdam B2C names like Booking.com or Catawiki.
But we identified 3 top Amsterdam-based unicorns that stand out as both strong hubs and top schools for engineering talent: Adyen, Miro, and Backbase. If you’re looking for where engineering strength and learning converge, these are the companies to watch.
And if this kind of mapping speaks to you, if you want to see how we built it, or if you’re hiring an emerging leader, mid-level manager, or specialist, let’s talk: anamarija@thebigsearch.com
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