from Gergely Orosz | by Gergely Orosz

Sometimes living in a smaller country has its advantages. I published the concept of the trimodal distribution of sw engineering compensation thanks to analyzing the smaller Dutch tech compensation market, which I both understood very well, and got lots of data points for. t.co/pAdnuk3WVL

The market in NL has characteristics many other tech markets have: 1. Big Tech is present 2. Lots of scaleups/startups with VC funding 3. Lots of local companies And because I knew the market very well, I was confident to make a definite assessment. t.co/BHWctPBJLE

Since then, it turned out that this model can be used to describe all tech markets that have both Big Tech present, and startups/scaleups with VC funding. The relative size of the tiers is just the difference. All started by me being confident knowing this one market *vey well.*

I've since then collected even more data points for both this market, and other markets, confirming the same distribution, and the correctness of the original observation (that I made in 2021.) Will publish a follow-up in @Pragmatic_Eng.

To date, this blog post is likely the one that has had the most actionable impact (in terms of people realizing how the market works, and proactively seeking out Tier 2/3 companies, when they only knew Tier 1.) Had so many people message me, and seen even more "aha moments." Eg: t.co/Ihk9sBYBta

The Reddit thread is here, also from 2021. On Reddit, folks link it almost every week, still, to explain to others how the compensation landscape looks like. t.co/PphtdXBIn6 A thing I'll add to the follow-up: the impact of remote compensation (more prevalent since 2021)