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Polish tech talent report 2026

The Polish
Builder's
DNA

Who founds and builds Polish startups, where they learned their trade, and who they built with.

Every Polish tech builder carries a code. We decoded it.

Poland Tech Week · Warsaw · October 2026

A different kind of celebration

Poland Tech Week is the week Polish tech celebrates itself. Founders, investors, startup employees and students meet to mark what has been built here, including companies such as ElevenLabs, ICEYE, Booksy and Codility that started with Polish founders and now sell around the world.

We wanted to add a different kind of celebration. Headlines count companies and rounds. Behind each of those companies is a small group of people who decided to found it and a first team who decided to join. This report is about them: who they are, where they learned their trade, and who they built with.

Most of what is said about those people rests on a handful of stories, such as the dorm-room founder, the olympiad genius or the engineer who came home from London. We looked deeper, person by person: the careers of 34,314 people at 452 Polish startups, set against 170,371 professionals in Poland with the same kind of job, experience and city who never worked at a startup.

Question 01

Is there something that sets the people who build startups apart from those who choose a different career path?

Question 02

Who do Polish startups hire, and what backgrounds do these people come from?

Question 03

Do career paths show us what we can do to strengthen the startup ecosystem?

Here are the findings that matter

  1. 01

    Founders start again. 35% of founders had founded a company before, against 1.5% of similar professionals. At 24 times as common, no other trait comes close.

  2. 02

    Founders lead early and study deep. 40% had managed people before founding (5.7 times as common) and 11% hold a doctorate (7.2 times).

  3. 03

    Teams bring range and practice. Employees worked across more industries (1.8 times as common), managed people earlier (2.7 times) and did more internships (1.5 times).

  4. 04

    Startups grow out of trusted circles. 52% of founding teams include former colleagues, against 1.2% expected by chance. One in seven of the first ten hires worked with a founder before.

  5. 05

    Founders more often studied partly abroad. Studying in both Poland and abroad is 2.6 times as common among founders as among similar professionals. Longer study abroad is less common.

  6. 06

    At top startups, founders differ more than teams do. Counting founders wherever they live, 51% of top-startup founders had worked abroad, against 28% at other startups. Their employees differ by less than four points on every trait.

Here's what the data shows, and what it means if you are founding, hiring, investing or studying.

Chapter 01

The code at a glance

Founders and their teams stand apart from similar professionals in the same direction, founders by far more.

The code · founders

Founders and their teams share a profile; founders show it more strongly

Each bar shows how many times more common a trait is among founders than among similar professionals with the same kind of job, experience and city. 1× means no difference.

  • Founders differ most on prior founding (24 times as common), consulting experience (9.8), doctorates (7.2) and early management (5.7).
  • Study abroad of more than 2.5 years in total is the only trait less common among founders (0.65×).

Founders: how many times as common as among similar professionals

Traits measured before founding

← less common · more common →
Founded a company before
24×
Worked at McKinsey, BCG or Bain
9.8×
Doctorate
7.2×
Managed people before
5.7×
Manager by career year ten
4.9×
Maths, physics or statistics
4.2×
Studied abroad up to 2.5 years
2.7×
Studied in Poland and abroad
2.6×
Top-ranked university
1.8×
Three or more industries
1.7×
Three or more employers
1.5×
First job at a firm under 50
1.5×
Internship
1.2×
Studied abroad over 2.5 years
0.65×

769 founders living in Poland at 452 startups, against similar professionals matched on role family, experience band and city. Education traits: 637 founders with a degree on record.

The code · employees

Employees show the same traits, more mildly

The same comparison for 33,545 employees. Their three strongest traits are the founders' three: prior founding (4.6 times as common), consulting experience (3.8) and doctorates (2.8).

  • Study abroad of more than 2.5 years is less common among employees too (0.59×).

Employees: how many times as common as among similar professionals

Traits measured before joining

← less common · more common →
Founded a company before
4.6×
Worked at McKinsey, BCG or Bain
3.8×
Doctorate
2.8×
Managed people before
2.7×
Manager by career year ten
2.7×
Maths, physics or statistics
1.9×
Three or more industries
1.8×
Studied abroad up to 2.5 years
1.7×
Three or more employers
1.6×
Studied in Poland and abroad
1.5×
Internship
1.5×
Top-ranked university
1.4×
First job at a firm under 50
1.2×
Studied abroad over 2.5 years
0.59×

33,545 employees living in Poland at 452 startups, against 170,371 similar professionals matched on role family, experience band and city. Education traits: 28,390 employees with a degree on record.

Chapter 02

Experience: they have done it before

Founders and early hires arrive having started companies and led people.

Gene 01 · Second start

One in three founders had founded a company before

35% of founders had founded a company before their current startup, against 1.5% of similar professionals. It is the largest gap of any trait we measured, and it reaches into the team: 7.8% of the first ten hires had founded before.

One caveat: prior founding does not clearly separate top startups from the rest (chapter 07).

Out of every 100 people, how many had founded a company before

Each dot is one person in a hundred

35
Founders
8
First ten hires
4
Later hires
1–1.5
Similar professionals

769 founders, 3,326 first-ten and 30,219 later hires living in Poland. Similar professionals: 1.5% for the founders' comparison group, 0.9% for the employees'.

Gene 02 · Command

Founders had managed people nearly six times as often before founding

40% of founders had managed people before founding, against 7% of similar professionals. Employees were also more likely to have led people before they joined: 13% of the first ten and 10% of later hires, against about 4%.

Managed people before joining

Share of each group, against similar professionals

Founders Employees Similar professionals
Founders
40%
7.1%
5.7×
First ten hires
13%
4%
3.3×
Later hires
9.9%
3.8%
2.6×

769 founders, 3,326 first-ten and 30,219 later hires living in Poland.

Gene 03 · Seasoning

Startups founded by teams aged 35 or older more often became top startups

Among startups with founders living in Poland, 20% of those whose founders averaged an estimated 35 or older at founding became top startups, against 10% of the rest (110 and 258 startups).

One caveat: our data has no birth dates. Age is estimated from the start of the first degree (taken as age 19) or the first job (age 22). Older founders also bring more experience and networks, and startups founded recently have had less time to reach the top.

Share of startups that became top startups

By the average age of the founding team at founding

20%
Founders averaging 35 or older110 startups
10%
Younger founding teams258 startups

368 startups with founders living in Poland and an estimated age. Top: Series B or later, USD 15M+ raised, or 150+ people.

Chapter 03

Learning: depth for founders, practice for teams

Founders studied deeper. Their employees learned on the job and across industries.

Gene 04 · Hunger to learn

Founders are seven times as likely to hold a doctorate

11% of founders with a degree on record hold a doctorate, against 1.6% of similar professionals. The share falls with distance from the founding team: 6.5% of the first ten and 3.4% of later hires.

Hold a doctorate

Share of people with a degree on record; grey: their similar professionals

Founders Employees Similar professionals
11%
1.6%
Founders
6.5%
1.4%
First ten hires
3.4%
1.3%
Later hires

637 founders, 2,721 first-ten and 25,669 later hires with a degree on record, living in Poland.

Gene 05 · Practice

Internships stand out among employees; among founders the gap is small

18% of later hires did an internship before joining, against 12% of similar professionals. Among founders the gap is small: 16% against 14%.

Did an internship before joining

Grey dot: similar professionals; coloured dot: the startup group

0%5%10%15%20%
Founders
1.2×
First ten hires
1.3×
Later hires
1.5×

769 founders, 3,326 first-ten and 30,219 later hires living in Poland. Internships identified from job titles.

Gene 06 · Range

Founders and employees worked across more industries

Half of founders had worked in three or more industries before founding, against 29% of similar professionals. Among later hires the share is 38% against 21%.

Worked in three or more industries before joining

Share of each group, against similar professionals

Founders Employees Similar professionals
Founders
50%
30%
1.7×
First ten hires
33%
20%
1.7×
Later hires
38%
21%
1.8×

769 founders, 3,326 first-ten and 30,219 later hires living in Poland. Industries as listed for each employer.

Chapter 04

Movement: study abroad

Founders more often studied abroad for part of their education.

Gene 09 · Round trip

Founders more often studied abroad for part of their education

11% of founders studied abroad for up to 2.5 years in total, against 4% of similar professionals. Study abroad of more than 2.5 years is less common among founders: 6.6% against 10.2%.

  • We only see people who live in Poland now, so those who studied abroad and stayed there are not counted.

One caveat: up to 2.5 years is the total time in study entries abroad, so it includes exchange semesters and one- or two-year master's degrees.

Founders who studied abroad

Share of founders with a degree on record; grey: similar professionals

Founders Similar professionals
Up to 2.5 years abroad in total
11%
4%
2.7×
More than 2.5 years abroad
6.6%
10%
0.65×

637 founders with a degree on record, living in Poland.

Chapter 05

Ties: built from trusted circles

Founding teams and first hires come from the same desks and lecture halls.

Gene 07 · Trusted circle · founders

Half of founding teams were colleagues first

In 52% of startups with two or more founders, at least two founders had worked at the same employer at the same time before founding. Reshuffling the same founders across startups founded in the same year and city gives 1.2%.

Founding teams where two founders had worked at the same employer

Share of startups with two or more founders

Observed
52%
Expected by chance
1.2%

279 startups with two or more founders. Chance: the same founders reshuffled across startups founded in the same year and city. Self-employment and stealth entries excluded as employers. Teams count all their founders, wherever they live.

Gene 07 · Trusted circle · university

More than half of founding teams studied at the same university

In 56% of startups with two or more founders and education on record, at least two founders studied at the same university. Reshuffling the same founders across startups founded in the same year and city gives 38%.

  • The gap is smaller than for workplaces: founders from the same city often went to the same few universities anyway.

Founding teams where two founders studied at the same university

Share of startups with two or more founders and education on record

Observed
56%
Expected by chance
38%

265 startups with two or more founders and education on record. Chance: the same founders reshuffled across startups founded in the same year and city.

Gene 08 · Old desk · employees

One in seven first hires worked with a founder before

14.5% of the first ten hires had worked at the same employer at the same time as one of the founders. Among later hires it is 2.7%, about one in 37.

Hires who had worked with a founder before

One highlighted figure per group

1 in 7First ten hires (14.5%)
1 in 37Later hires (2.7%)

3,615 first-ten and 41,027 later hires at 379 startups with founder profiles.

Chapter 06

Origins: where the code forms

Where founders and startup employees studied and worked before.

Universities · most popular

Most startup people studied at the University of Warsaw, SGH and Warsaw Tech

The University of Warsaw has the most alumni at Polish startups: 103 founders and 2,770 employees. SGH (100 founders, 2,057 employees) and Warsaw Tech (71 and 2,255) follow, then AGH and Wrocław Tech.

  • These are absolute numbers, so large universities lead. The next two views adjust for city and for size.

Where founders and startup employees studied

Number of people with a degree from each university; top eight

Founders

  1. 01University of Warsaw103
  2. 02SGH Warsaw100
  3. 03Warsaw Tech71
  4. 04Wrocław Tech62
  5. 05AGH Kraków61
  6. 06Jagiellonian43
  7. 07Koźmiński38
  8. 08Poznań Economics25

Startup employees

  1. 01University of Warsaw2,770
  2. 02Warsaw Tech2,255
  3. 03SGH Warsaw2,057
  4. 04AGH Kraków1,760
  5. 05Wrocław Tech1,704
  6. 06Jagiellonian1,558
  7. 07University of Wrocław1,045
  8. 08SWPS919

Founders and employees living in Poland at the 452 startups, by university of any degree in Poland; people with degrees from two universities count for both. Universities with 3,000 or more alumni in our data.

Universities · founders

Relative to their city, AGH and SGH have the most founders among alumni

Among alumni living in Poland, AGH had 2.1 times and SGH 1.8 times as many founders as expected from graduates in the same city.

One caveat: expected values adjust for city only, not for field of study or role.

Founders among alumni, relative to expected

Universities with 3,000 or more alumni living in Poland; number of founders in grey

AGH Kraków61
2.1×
SGH Warsaw100
1.8×
Wrocław Tech62
1.7×
Koźmiński38
1.5×
Poznań Economics25
1.5×
Jagiellonian43
1.4×
Warsaw Tech71
1.3×
PJATK13
1.2×
University of Warsaw103
1.2×
as expected1.5×2×

Expected founders: the founder rate of all graduates living in the same city. Small counts pulled toward the average by adding 10 expected founders.

Universities · employees

Relative to its size, PJATK has the most alumni in startup jobs

27 of every 1,000 PJATK alumni living in Poland have worked at one of the 452 startups, against 14 to 19 at the largest universities.

  • PJATK is an IT school, and universities differ in their mix of fields. We have not adjusted for field.

Startup employees per 1,000 alumni

Universities with 10,000 or more alumni living in Poland

PJATK
27
Warsaw Tech
19
SWPS
19
Collegium Da Vinci
18
Wrocław Tech
17
AGH Kraków
17
SGH Warsaw
17
Koźmiński
16
University of Warsaw
14

Employees of the 452 startups with a degree from the university, per 1,000 alumni living in Poland.

Employers

Consultancies produce twice as many founders per early hire as software houses

For every 100 former staff that business-consulting firms sent into startups as first-ten hires, 59 other former staff went on to found a startup. IT services and software development firms produced 29.

Founders per 100 early hires sent to startups

By industry of the previous employer; people who left 2005 to 2019

59
Business consulting
44
Technology and internet
29
IT services
29
Software development

Founders: founded one of the 452 startups within five years of leaving. Early hires: joined one as one of its first ten within five years. Business consulting: 40 founders, 68 early hires; IT services: 88 and 305.

Chapter 07

Top startups: do they hire differently?

Founders of top startups differ on a few traits. Their teams look much like those at other startups.

Top startups · founders

Founders of top startups more often have international careers

51% of founders of top startups had worked abroad before founding, against 28% at other startups. They also came from top-ranked universities and consultancies more often. Prior founding and management do not separate them.

  • This comparison counts founders wherever they live. Founders now living abroad have almost by definition worked abroad, which likely widens the gap.
  • Top startups: Series B or later, USD 15M or more raised, or 150 or more people (61 of 452).

Founders of top and other startups

Share with the trait before founding; founders wherever they live

Top startups Other startups
Worked abroad
51%
28%
Top-ranked university
29%
19%
McKinsey, BCG or Bain
5.1%
1.6%
Managed people
40%
39%
Founded before
34%
36%

158 founders of 52 top startups and 795 founders of 328 other startups, wherever they live.

Top startups · employees

Employees of top and other startups look much alike

On every trait measured, employees at top and other startups differ by less than four points.

  • So the traits in the earlier chapters describe who joins startups more than who joins the most successful ones.

Employees of top and other startups

Share with the trait before joining

Top startups Other startups
Three or more employers
47%
43%
Internship
20%
17%
Top-ranked university
14%
13%
Managed people
9.5%
11%
Founded before
3.5%
4.8%

13,063 employees of 60 top startups and 20,482 of 379 other startups, living in Poland.

Top startups · speed

Top startups reached ten people in their first year twice as often

53% of top startups had ten people within a year of founding, against 25% of other startups. In the last two years, 38% of top startups shrank, against 48% of the rest.

  • Top startups are defined partly by size (150 or more people), so faster growth is partly built into the definition.

Top and other startups

Share of startups

Top startups Other startups
Ten people within the first year
53%
25%
Smaller than 24 months ago
38%
48%

Ten people: startups started since 2012, 51 top and 357 other; people on record at the same time, counted from the founders' start. Shrank: 60 top and 359 other startups.

Hiring pro tip

Simon Kubicki

Simon Kubicki

Founding Partner @TechTree

A recruiter's view from placing people. The data in this report does not measure promotions, scope, speed or work samples.

Most companies screen for a famous university or a big-tech logo because both are easy to check. A university shows what someone could do at nineteen, and a logo shows that a company once said yes. Neither tells you what that person will build next month.

So what should you look for?

  • Promotions and ownership. A manager watched this person work for years and still decided to give them more responsibility. Taking or receiving more ownership is connected with trust, capabilities, growth & proactivity.
  • Starting over. Someone who moved abroad or spent a semester at a foreign university had to rebuild everything from zero. A startup asks for the same thing every month, and people who have done it once know they can do it again.
  • Speed. Imagine two people with the same title, one who got there in eight years and one in three. Hire the second. Where someone started is mostly luck, and how fast they are climbing is mostly them.
  • Scope. At a 30-person startup, one person can own the whole backend with no one to catch their mistakes, so they learn to see the full product. At a large tech company, a very smart engineer can spend years on one feature and never see it.
  • The work itself. Ask for what they shipped and the numbers it moved. A case study on a real problem, done during the process, tells you more than a round of interviews.
  • Their questions. Candidates who researched the company and used what they found will prepare the same way for their work.

The best people are often at companies nobody has heard of, or on careers that don't follow a straight line. Ask them "why" three times about one thing they built. People who did the work get more specific with each answer, and people who only watched get vaguer.

The talent is here, and most companies haven't learned to see it yet.

What it means

Four readers, four ways to use the findings

For founders

Hire for what people have done, and check how wide your circle is

  • Ask what candidates have done, not where they studied. Top-ranked universities are as common among employees of other startups as among those of top startups (13% vs 14%). Startup employees were 2.7 times as likely as similar professionals to have managed people and 1.8 times as likely to have worked in three or more industries.
  • Expect former founders in your pool. 8 in 100 of the first ten hires had founded a company before, against about 1 in 100 similar professionals.
  • Use your network, then measure it. One in seven of the first ten worked with a founder before. Check what share of your hires comes from your own circle, and keep at least one hiring channel outside it.

For investors

Read the founder profile, not only the CV headline

  • Do not treat a repeat founder as a signal on its own. A third of founders had founded before, at top and other startups alike (34% vs 36%).
  • Note top-university and consulting backgrounds, but weigh small numbers. Founders of top startups more often studied at top-ranked universities (29% vs 19%) and worked at McKinsey, BCG or Bain (5.1% vs 1.6%), but these groups are small.
  • Do not screen out older founders. Startups whose founders averaged an estimated 35 or older reached the top in 20% of cases, against 10% (110 and 258 startups).

For talent and students

Collect range and responsibility

  • Work in more than one industry. 38% of later startup hires had worked in three or more industries before joining, against 21% of similar professionals.
  • Take on responsibility for people when you can. Startup employees were 2.7 times as likely as similar professionals to have been managers by year ten of their careers.
  • Use internships as a way in. 18% of later startup hires did an internship before joining, against 12% of similar professionals.
  • If you study abroad, keep a foot in Poland. Combining study in Poland and abroad is 2.6 times as common among founders as among similar professionals. Longer study abroad is less common.

For universities and the ecosystem

Open the circles founders grow in

  • Mix students across programmes. 56% of founding teams share a university, against 38% expected by chance. Courses, projects and clubs that bring programmes together widen the circle co-founders come from.
  • Support exchange semesters and joint programmes abroad. Combining study in Poland and abroad is 2.6 times as common among founders as among similar professionals.
  • Keep doctoral routes into startups open. 11% of founders hold a doctorate, against 1.6% of similar professionals.

Need a hiring partner to reach best talent?

TechTree is an AI-powered platform built to find the best talent for your team.

Let's talk →

Methodology note

How we built the comparison

This report uses TechTree's knowledge graph of public professional profiles and company records, snapshot October 2026. Here is how we built the comparison:

  • Polish startups. 452 companies on a hand-curated list of Polish startups. A small set of platform companies that list contractors as staff is excluded from most analyses. Eight are headquartered abroad.
  • Top startups. Startups at Series B or later, with USD 15M or more raised, or with 150 or more people: 61 of the 452.
  • People. 34,314 people living in Poland who worked at one of the startups: 769 founders, 3,326 first-ten hires (the first ten non-founder hires at each startup) and 30,219 later hires.
  • Similar professionals. A 5% sample of Polish residents who never worked at a startup-like company (170,371 people), matched to each startup group on role family, experience band and city. Multiples compare the share with a trait in the startup group with the share among their matched similar professionals.
  • Traits. Measured from career and education history before a person joined the startup, or before a founder founded it.
  • Study abroad. The total time in education entries outside Poland. “Up to 2.5 years” therefore includes exchange semesters and one- or two-year master's degrees.
  • Founder age. Our data has no birth dates. We estimate age at founding from the start of a founder's first degree (taken as age 19) or, without one, their first job (age 22), and average it across the founding team.
  • Chance levels for teams. The share of founding teams with a tie expected if the same founders were reshuffled across startups founded in the same year and city.
  • What this does not show. These are associations, not causes. They describe who already works at startups, not who would succeed there. Profiles are self-reported and incomplete, so shares are lower bounds. The comparison is not matched on age, and closed startups are under-recorded.