“Not all IT people resonate with the spirit of Wall Street”: IT recruitment challenges in fintech and how to overcome them

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Fintech is an area that is expanding year after year. More than 11 thousand such companies had been registered in the United States alone by 2023, and 22 of Ukraine’s top 50 IT companies have fintech projects. However, recruitment in this field is not easy. The demands placed on candidates are typically high, and the time to hire is longer than the market average.

Keep reading to find out about the challenges, hiring peculiarities, and tips for optimizing recruitment from ITExpert professionals.

Fintech: important facts for the hiring manager and candidates

Fintech is a field of development in which IT companies create or maintain software products for the financial sphere. These include banking (BaaS), currency exchanges, e-wallets, NFTs, cryptocurrency transactions, and so on. According to Statista’s Research Department, the number of fintech startups is increasing year after year; by 2023, more than 11 thousand such companies have been registered in the United States alone. And according to DOU, 22 of the top 50 IT companies in Ukraine have fintech projects. Furthermore, digital products in the financial sector no longer surprise anyone; they have become a part of our daily lives. For example, according to these estimates, approximately 2.8 billion people use their mobile phones to make payments.

And fintech is actively hiring! Even by the time this article was published, more than 1.1 thousand vacancies had been published on LinkedIn in the United States, 1000+ in the UK, and 200+ in Ukraine for specialists in this field. Among them are positions for developers, testers, SRE and DevOps engineers, data engineers, database specialists, product managers, designers, delivery managers, and so on.

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Why is fintech an attractive field for IT professionals?

• Relative stability. Despite the fact that even well-known fintech companies have had to make cuts in the wake of the general trend (for example, PayPal fired 2 thousand employees), this area is considered to be one of the most stable.

• Opportunities for development and career advancement. Developers usually have regular performance reviews and other ways to develop professionally.

• Learning and implementing cutting-edge technological solutions. In fintech, ML, blockchain, cloud computing, low-code, and other technologies are widely used.

But not all IT professionals are fans of fintech. According to statistics, almost 50% of specialists in this field are planning to change jobs during the year. Most often, the reasons for switching between companies are: a higher salary offer, greater flexibility in the schedule and format of work, and career advancement.

IT recruitment challenges in fintech companies

We’ve discussed with ITExpert professionals the features of hiring IT specialists in the financial sector and compared them with other IT product domains.

The desire to hire the best of the best while the market is limitedAccording to research, the fintech talent market is suffering from a shortage of up to 75% of qualified professionals. However, even with all the restrictions in this sphere, those in charge of hiring often like to consider more candidates and think longer about their choices. What are the reasons for this?

Mariia Kutsevol

Recruitment Team Lead at ITExpert

“Usually, all companies want to hire promising and skilled specialists who will build a successful product. However, for fintech, this is more than a wish; it is a necessity. Candidates’ skills may determine whether a feature will become a competitive advantage and meet the expectations of the company’s consumers. For example, we worked with businesses that supported instant currency transactions. In this market, you need to know the specifics of working with low latency because milliseconds of delay can affect transactions and the attitude of customers toward your product.

High demands placed on the specialists have a direct impact on the format and stages of recruiting, the time required for hiring, and the number of candidates who can be considered. Typically, the hiring cycle in fintech is longer. Managers in such companies usually read resumes very carefully, and they can give complex test tasks (not all IT specialists are ready to do them). In addition to general pickiness, they are unwilling to invest significant resources in training and long-term onboarding, as they prefer candidates who can adapt quickly to a new job.” 

The need to adapt to the style of communication and expectations of IT professionals in fintech

Our experience shows that not all IT professionals are comfortable working with the high expectations of managers in fintech. Sometimes, this becomes clear already during the hiring stage when values are being checked.

Mykola Kliestov

CTO at ITExpert

“Of course, fintech companies differ greatly, and each has its own set of values. However, they can be divided into several groups.

One example is businesses that rose to prominence during the first wave of digitalization (typically in the field of electronic trading). Such businesses have fairly clear processes, a focus on maximum efficiency, and the so-called Wall Street spirit. They are usually already well-versed in their field and have high expectations for the skills of IT specialists, as well as their level of interest in working for these companies. At the same time, even when interviewed by a fintech niche leader, IT specialists rarely show their enthusiasm with exuberance, as they don’t understand this domain very well. For these reasons, it is difficult for such a team to find a perfect developer who meets all of the requirements.

But there is another type — innovative fintech: neobanks, DeFi, blockchain, modern credit companies, and so on. These are businesses that are closer to IT people in spirit, but they also have their own peculiarities. They usually have specific requirements and require knowledge of rare technologies. For example, we worked with a client who processed market data in order to make predictions about the securities market. It is critical for such a product that each developer has a data science vision so that the team can work toward a common goal. They are looking for unique talents, and such products pique the interest of developers, but the talent market is extremely limited.

And these companies are mostly startups that do not yet have perfectly organized processes, delayed career advancement tools, or a working day from 9 to 18 (there will probably be overtime). They expect candidates to be proactive, flexible, and ready to work in such conditions, limiting the market of candidates by eliminating those who are used to working with more comfort for IT companies that operate in other domains.”

High level of responsibility

Being responsible is critical for professionals working for fintech companies. This industry deals with sensitive and confidential client information, and negligence or error can have serious consequences, including financial losses and a loss of client trust. Mariia Kutsevol shared with us how this factor affects hiring.

Mariia Kutsevol

Recruitment Team Lead at ITExpert

“Mistakes in fintech cost millions of dollars. For example, a large-scale failure at the well-known Ukrainian digital bank Monobank that lasted 3-4 hours cost the company more than 0.5 million USD (interest on loans was not charged for the day when the application was down).

Fintech professionals must understand how much depends on them. If this is a product that has been on the market for a decade and has millions of users, a failure could even freeze an entire region’s economy. That is why managers are as attentive as possible to the soft skills of candidates during the final stages of interviews — it is important to find a person who will understand how crucial their contribution and the high quality of their work are.”

Tips for effectively finding IT specialists for your team

The recruitment team lead and CTO at ITExpert talk about how you can improve the recruitment process and results for financial and technical projects.

Mykola Kliestov

CTO at ITExpert

“If you want to optimize hiring for a fintech company, I would advise you to consider all the important limitations. You must strike a balance between finding the ideal candidate and finding someone who can begin working on the project within the specified time frame. Occasionally, company specialists may unconsciously overestimate the requirements for candidates. It’s easy to understand them, as you always want to hire the best and release a product that will defeat competitors.

But, at the same time, that increases time-to-hire while development isn’t progressing without a team. Sometimes, a perfectly executed hire is the one that:

1. met the deadlines,
2. provided you with the candidates who possess the key skills.”

Mariia Kutsevol

Recruitment Team Lead at ITExpert

“My experience of communicating with and helping recruit 10+ representatives of fintech companies shows that domain experience plays a crucial role in this field. Occasionally, a specialist without expertise in financial products will pass a technical interview and gain approval from the team, but will leave while still on probation due to difficulties with adaptation. This is a fairly typical market situation, but such risks are unacceptable in fintech due to the high level of responsibility placed on each team member. Managers of fintech companies are typically unwilling to compromise on essential skills, and this is entirely justified.

If you want to improve the recruitment process, I recommend using the donor company search method. Keep in mind that it is important to first speak with the most relevant candidates based on their domain experience and level of technology mastery, and only then gradually expand the search. For example, if you are a startup in the field of cryptocurrency, it is better to start considering specialists who work in similar companies (donors), and if they are not enough to make a decision, attract candidates from other fintech businesses and only later — from other fields.”

Do you want to optimize your recruitment for a fintech company? We can help you with this! The ITExpert team has extensive experience in this field as well as a hot database of specialists. We will find the first candidates for you within 2-3 days after the beginning of the search.

Leave your contact information, and we will discuss the specifics of your vacancies!