Developer Hiring Trends in the Netherlands

Despite a turbulent year for the tech industry, the Netherlands seems to have avoided the mass tech layoffs we've seen in the US and elsewhere in Europe so far. On top of this, developers remain in high demand and the variety of local opportunities continues to climb in the Netherlands.

1 in 3 developers in the Netherlands are either hoping to move jobs within the next year, or are already actively looking. Overall, 40% of developers have been in their roles for less than a year, while two of thirds of developers have been in their jobs for less than two years.

For companies hiring, this means there is great talent on the market. At the same time, it's important to regularly check in on your current team's happiness, even your new joiners. Developers won’t hesitate to move on quickly if their current job is not a match. The question is: what prompts developers to leave? We’ll unpack this next.

The top reason that developers start searching for new opportunities is for better salaries, followed by poor management and a lack of work-life balance in their current roles.

In a competitive market, where developers are in high demand, you need to offer a competitive salary if you want to attract the best talent – and retain your existing team. To do this, it’s best to keep tabs on what competitors are offering developers in the market – and you’re already doing that by reading reports like this one.

A better salary is the number one reason developers leave a role. 1 in 7 developers received a whopping 50% pay rise when they last changed roles.

What's driving these increases? In the Netherlands, it's uncommon to reveal payslips to prospective employers – which makes it easier for salaries to match developers' expectations.

In addition, counteroffers from other companies can increase the final salary on offer, and developers that were underpaid in the past tend to get bigger increases when changing jobs. In comparison, developers that stayed in their current roles received less than a 10% annual increase.
Given that better salaries are the primary reason developers leave roles, it's important to keep these market realities in mind when having reviews with your team.

If certain annual increases aren't within your budget, it's crucial to focus on the other factors that matter for retention. Let’s take a look at this in the next section.

Within a highly competitive market, it's vital to do everything in your power to widen your talent pool. Every choice you make in the hiring process affects the number of developers you could be reaching or turning off.

A prime example are upfront salaries in your job ads. Not including a salary in your job ads could cost you more than half of potential applicants, drastically narrowing your available pool of talent.

Providing salary information upfront is not enough to keep candidates in your pipeline. You need to ensure your candidate experience is top-shelf. More than 70% of developers have dropped out of a process due to negative experiences. This number rises with seniority, with more senior talent being most likely to cut their losses after a bad experience.

So, which of their paint points should you avoid at all costs? Let's unpack this next.

Developers know what they want and are prioritising their salary growth when changing roles. Being lowballed on salary is their number one pain point in a hiring process, especially for juniors. Having discussions with developers about their salary expectations early on can prevent developers from dropping out of your process.

You should also ensure your hiring team's outreach tactics are on point. Developers are in high demand so they get inundated with messages that are often not relevant to them. In fact, being approached with an irrelevant role is their second biggest pain point. Why is it important that developers don't associate your company's hiring outreach with spam? Because developers talk to each other.

Providing a negative experience during your hiring process affects more than your current pipeline. It makes it harder to attract new applicants in future. 84.3% developers share their experiences with their peers.

That means you need to do everything in your power to leave developers with a good impression. Be sure to provide room for developers to give input on your hiring process, whether they're successful or not, so that you can identify where you're winning and what you need to improve.

Developers are a tight-knit community that talk amongst themselves. While almost all developers rely on word of mouth, 48% also take their experiences public.

This means that any touch point in your hiring process can have repercussions on your brand long after it's over, giving even more reason to pay close attention to developers' pet peeves and what they value in the hiring process.

The above goes to show: Interviewing is a two-way street. Developers use your process as a window into what it might be like to work with you.

Again, we see evidence of the importance of candidate experience: Developers will rely on existing and former employees and word of mouth to assess your company culture. If those peers had a bad experience with you in your hiring process, you might lose future candidates.

When it comes to providing a great candidate experience, software engineers care about transparency and good communication. They want to know whether you're aligned in terms of salary and role expectations, what your process looks like, and how they've been doing during the interviews. Seniors place even more value on transparency, with almost 68% rating it as the factor they most appreciate in a hiring process.

Seniors are in greater demand, have more experience, and potentially a better understanding of what they want. They generally have more options and can take their pick.

Being clear about the role, the salary, and how your candidates are doing will help prevent drop-off in your pipeline and leave developers with a good impression to share with their peers.

0% represents no respondents at that seniority choosing that option.

What benefits make up an attractive offer? Bonuses are the most desired benefit of 58% of developers, followed by retirement contributions and equity. However, bonuses and equity are uncommon in the Netherlands, with neither appearing in the top 5 current benefits received by developers.

Offering a commuting allowance is the most common benefit, perhaps unsurprising given the preference for hybrid work amongst both developers and employers.

Since bonuses and equity are developers' most desired benefits, you can get an edge on your competitors by advertising this in your job offers.