Ask a CTO how they're doing, and watch for the telling pause before they answer, "Fine." That hesitation reveals more than any employee satisfaction survey ever could.
While tech headlines celebrate innovation, a silent epidemic is hollowing out its workforce. Seven in ten IT professionals report burnout, and nearly as many admit they’re drowning under chronic overstrain. The burnout symptoms are visible everywhere: Belgium has seen a 44% rise in burnout among younger generations in just five years, while in the Netherlands, one in five professionals battle exhaustion, with IT and engineering among the hardest hit.
At the leadership level, the pressure intensifies. CTOs and VPs juggle impossible workloads: driving innovation, managing teams, staying compliant (especially in fintech), and delivering results, all while remote work blurs the line between strategy time and constant availability. AI adoption adds yet another layer, demanding new decision-making frameworks, tool evaluation, and training, creating cognitive overload that traditional management training never prepared the leaders for.
Geography and culture compound the strain specific to the Benelux and Nordic regions. Amsterdam experiences just 7 daylight hours in December, while Stockholm sees only 5.5 hours – light deprivation that correlates directly with executive decision-making capacity and mood regulation. Beyond that, Scandinavian norms of self-reliance, solitude, and reserved communication can isolate executives who need help but feel discouraged from seeking it.
The fallout is severe. Burned-out leaders make poorer strategic calls, struggle to oversee innovation, and fail to inspire teams during critical transformation periods. The result: higher turnover, delayed projects, and mounting technical debt, which are costs that dwarf any short-term productivity gains.
As a people-focused organisation, we see this daily: engineers and leaders alike stretched to breaking point. In cases like this, nearshoring, done right, is proving to be more than a hiring strategy – it eases pressure on in-house leadership, balances workloads, and helps prevent and alleviate executive burnout symptoms.
In the sections ahead, we’ll examine the root causes, the organisational impact, and how nearshoring can form part of a sustainable solution for tech leadership burnout.
In fintech, burnout symptoms build up fast – especially in the Benelux and Nordic regions, where fintech hubs like Amsterdam and Stockholm amplify pressures through rapid innovation demands and a cultural emphasis on high performance.
One day, you're delegating tasks and onboarding a new hire. Next, you're buried in a backlog of urgent tasks, new compliance demands from Dutch AFM or Swedish financial regulators, and mentoring someone who might quit within six months. You’re constantly switching between tech work, team management, and compliance, all while chasing unattainable targets.
And because fintech teams are often stuck interfacing legacy banking and finance systems, it feels like every product decision needs a legal sign-off. Between DORA, PSD3, AMLA, and other EU financial services rules, everything is changing, except the deadlines.
Instead of focusing on architecture or team development, your time gets swallowed up by mending bugs, managing urgent requests, and sifting through technical debt. You simply can’t plan ahead if you’re always stuck in the past. And as that tech debt grows, your team's pace slackens. 37% of engineering professionals report that efficiency, predictability, and productivity have declined over the past year.
And hiring isn’t getting easier either.
The tech industry’s 13.2% turnover rate is even higher in fintech. Finding people with the proper expertise, industry knowledge, and the right skills is rather difficult. Even when you find someone fitting, there’s no guarantee they’ll remain. And the whole thing begins, as witnessed many times by our fintech clients. Massive turnover in the core team and leaders forced to balance delivery whilst continuously recruiting and re-training. How do you not get swamped in circumstances like that?
The more pressure you take on, the more the cracks start to show. You start reacting instead of leading. And your team feels the weight of it, too.
Our People Partners regularly check in with tech department heads, not just to support delivery but to help protect leadership from burnout. According to them, spotting the early signs can sometimes be a tough job. What are they?
Speed and stress often go hand in hand. But working at a relentless pace doesn’t have to come at the expense of your well-being or ability to lead. Here’s how to protect your energy and lead with more headspace.
Calendars filled with back-to-back meetings, constant Teams or Slack pings, and knee-jerk decisions are exhausting over time.
Protecting your diary is protecting your team. Try async stand-ups, no-meeting days, and deep work time. Even a few undisturbed hours can make a big difference when it comes to solving problems and leading effectively.
Chasing invoices or handling mind-numbing tasks on repeat is not what leadership is about. But menial jobs can pile up fast.
Many of our clients feel they can’t even step away for five minutes. But being “always on” dulls your judgment, drains creativity, and chips away at your ability to lead.
BlackFog research found that cybersecurity leaders who had structured stress support were more aligned with company strategy and more likely to stay in the job. The same goes for engineering leads.
Instead of ticking off every task, steer the ship. Set the direction, provide clarity, and be the support your team needs. Don’t get bogged down scrutinising every ticket and chasing every last deliverable. Use smart solutions to get back on track with your priorities.
For example, nearshoring helps you to shift back into leadership mode. Instead of firefighting or covering resource gaps, you get time to plan, mentor your teams, and think long-term. You’re stepping into the role only you can fill, and stop being the bottleneck. Here are a few examples of what we mean.
Burnout sets in when the pressure to deliver outweighs the ability to manage. That’s why we don’t just parachute extra hands to your teams. We build support around leaders, giving them room to breathe.
And your relief starts quickly. In just 4–8 weeks, we assemble and onboard your nearshore team so support arrives when you need it, not after the crunch has passed.
Every fintech client we work with gets support from two key roles: a People Partner and a Client Partner. They work closely with your leads and nearshore team to ease day-to-day strain and ensure smooth delivery without prolonged onboarding and communication delays.
Once your team is in place, we take care of everything else: HR, legal, equipment, onboarding logistics, and ongoing retention. You won’t have to worry about paperwork, benefits, or burnout triggers that often come with internal hires. Our people show up ready to work, seamlessly integrating with your team and your tools from day one. To make sure their alignment stays intact, we regularly check in on them and address any issues or motivational dips so you don’t have to. And if your priorities shift? You can scale your team up or down with minimal notice.
Just take a look at how one of our clients cut their tax processing time from two full days to just three hours. The augmented team slotted in quickly, built a tailored solution, and freed up their finance leadership to focus on strategy – and even take a proper holiday.
And because our recruitment is rock-solid, your team stays steady. With a 96% trial success rate and just 4.3% attrition, the engineers who join your team are the ones who stay. That continuity takes the pressure off your leads and avoids the churn of constant rehiring and training. Or compliance hassle. With over 120 roles filled for financial clients, our teams stay ahead of constantly shifting regulations. They monitor changes as they occur, helping you stay compliant without slowing down your delivery.
The warning signs are clear. In Benelux and Nordic fintech hubs, executive burnout is a strategic risk. Exhausted leaders struggle to drive innovation, manage compliance, and keep teams aligned, leading to higher turnover, delayed projects, and mounting technical debt.
But this cycle isn’t inevitable. By distributing workloads more sustainably through a reliable nearshoring partner, fintech organisations in the region can protect their most critical asset – their people, and build resilience into leadership structures.
If you want your fintech leadership to stay sharp, innovative, and resilient in the face of mounting demands, now is the time to act. Talk to us about building a nearshoring strategy that protects your leaders and drives sustainable growth. Let’s chat!