Andrey Ivanov’s Post

How do you compete with Big Tech for top payments & fintech talent? In today’s landscape, it’s no longer just startups vs. scaleups. Big Tech is actively recruiting in payments, embedded finance, and crypto. But you can win. The key is leaning into your unique strengths. Here’s how: 🔵 Embrace mission & impact: In a smaller or growing firm, your engineers, product leads, and risk teams can see the direct impact of their work. That’s hard to replicate at scale. 🔵 Offer autonomy & rapid growth: Fewer layers, faster decisions, and real ownership. Many candidates will value that. 🔵 Culture matters: Giving people freedom in how and where they work signals trust and innovation. 🔵 Design smarter compensation packages: you can be creative with bonuses tied to real impact, equity, wellness or learning perks, and flexibility. 🔵 Speed up hiring & reduce friction: Big Tech’s hiring cycles are long. If your process is lean, empathetic, and fast, you’ll convert more great candidates. If you’re building or scaling a payments or fintech team and want to understand how to punch above your weight in hiring, this article is for you: https://lnkd.in/eHAvEZWV #Fintech #Payments #TalentAcquisition #Recruitment

Most FinTechs think they have a hiring problem. What they really have… is a clarity problem. I see it all the time. Smart teams, solid funding, exciting roadmaps. But vague job descriptions that sound just like their competitors’. When a senior/staff engineer can’t tell why your role is worth leaving their forever job for… They don’t apply. They don’t refer. They just scroll. The companies that move fast don’t “post better jobs.” They define who they are hiring for and why that person should care. Clear positioning isn't just branding. It's a hiring advantage. Use it. 🙃

Thinking about making the jump to a hedge fund, trading firm, or start-up? 🧑💻 Don’t go it alone. 🤝 If you’re a software engineer exploring your next move, working with a recruiter who specializes in high-performance tech roles can be a game-changer - especially in competitive spaces like quant trading, fintech, and early-stage start-ups. 📈 Here’s why: 💡 1. Access to hidden opportunities Many of the most interesting firms don’t post their roles publicly. Recruiters often have direct relationships with hiring managers and can get your profile in front of decision-makers - not just an applicant tracking system. 🧭 2. Market insight and strategy Good recruiters know the landscape: compensation bands, what each firm values, how interview processes differ, and which companies align with your background. They can help you target the right opportunities strategically -not just apply blindly. 🚀 3. Interview prep that actually helps Recruiters who regularly place engineers at trading firms and start-ups know what those interviews look like - the types of coding challenges, system design expectations, and “fit” questions that matter. They’ll make sure you’re ready. 💬 4. Advocacy and negotiation A strong recruiter doesn’t just send your resume - they advocate for you. They highlight your strengths, help frame your experience, and negotiate on your behalf to secure the best offer possible. If you’re an engineer considering your next step into high-impact, high-reward environments - whether it’s building low-latency systems at a market maker or scaling infrastructure at a start-up - partnering with the right recruiter can open doors you didn’t even know existed. 🤝

The Hidden Cost of Slow Hiring in FinTech: 💡 If you think a long, drawn-out interview process means “hiring smart,” you might be losing more than you realize. In FinTech, time isn’t just money - it’s product velocity, investor confidence, and market share, as the payments market is so competitive. I’ve seen startups spend 8 weeks and 5 interview rounds debating between two engineers… By the time they make an offer, both are gone one joined a large player in the payments space, the other joined a fast-moving start-up, where the quick process made the candidate feel desired and bought in. Meanwhile, the team is down 1 engineer, deadlines slip, and leadership’s attention drifts to “why recruiting is so hard.” Here’s the timelines I use when talking to founders: - 1 month delay = 1 sprint behind competitors - 2 months delay = 1 missed release cycle - Lost momentum = lost morale Speed doesn’t mean lowering the bar. It means tightening your process, aligning your team, and moving decisively when you find the person. FinTech rewards speed - especially in hiring. Any founders struggling in this area, feel free to drop me a message, always happy to compare notes 📒

“Steady Hands in a Shifting FinTech Market” There has been a noticeable recalibration in senior FinTech and RegTech hiring globally over the last few months. In both the UK and the US, boards and investors are calling for steadier hands, but with sharper commercial edges. The exuberant “growth at all costs” era has firmly passed. What is replacing it is a focus on profitability, governance, and regulatory readiness. In practical terms, that means senior hiring is less about founders and disruptors, and more about builders and stewards. Companies are seeking leaders who can guide through uncertainty, not just pitch vision. Experience in capital efficiency, compliance scaling, and investor relations is now valued as highly as product flair. Across my own network, a few clear patterns are emerging: Senior roles are taking longer to sign off, but once approved, are being filled quickly and decisively. Candidates with hybrid skills, combining operational rigour and innovation insight, are landing more offers. Many firms are consolidating global leadership functions into fewer, higher-impact posts. It is a climate that rewards patience, presence, and partnership. Whether you are hiring or being hired, the emphasis is shifting from speed to substance. #FinTech #RegTech #ExecutiveSearch #Leadership #HiringTrends #UKFinTech #USFinTech

What actually moves your fintech career forward when you work fully remote? It usually comes down to a few habits that compound over time. 1. You learn how the team shapes decisions. Every update, every flow, every message comes from a chain of reasoning. Understanding that chain helps your work land with precision. 2. You make the system smoother for the people around you. A clearer path. A stronger narrative. A cleaner handoff. These upgrades build trust faster than volume. 3. You develop one skill people associate with your name. Activation, positioning, GTM, lifecycle, content architecture - a clear centre of gravity makes you easy to bring into important work. 4. You let your thinking show. Short breakdowns, notes from reviews, before–after examples. This creates the kind of proof hiring managers remember. 5. You stay close to how the industry shifts. Regulation, product movement, user behaviour - the more current you are, the more accurate your instincts become. 👉 Full breakdown in the comments #Fintech #FintechMarketing #RemoteWork #RemoteCareers #Web3Marketing #DigitalMarketing #MarketingCareers #GrowthMarketing #FintechJobs

This COO looked like a ‘luxury hire’ at £280K. Six months later, they saved the company £30M. Earlier this year, I spoke with the CEO of a tech-enabled lender. Their ops were messy. Margins were tightening. And customer onboarding times had ballooned from 2 days to over 12. “I need someone who can fix this — fast,” he said. But his budget? £160K–£180K. I asked him: “What if the real cost isn’t the salary… it’s not solving the problem?” I introduced him to a £280K+ COO. ✅ Not cheap. ✅ Not easy to land. ✅ But she’d built and scaled ops functions across 3 high-growth fintechs, each with regulatory complexity, multiple funding lines, and demanding investors. He almost didn’t meet her. “Feels overkill for where we are.” But eventually, he trusted the process. 6 months in: * £30M in cost savings unlocked via vendor renegotiations, automation, and operational clean-up * NPS increased 40 points * They’re now funding in 3 hours, not 3 days He called me last month and said: “Hiring her was the most value-accretive decision we’ve made as a business.” This is what happens when you hire for outcomes, not optics. It’s not about what someone costs. It’s about what not having them is costing you. If you’re scaling and wrestling with risk, ops, or margin pressures, I’d be happy to share insight from searches I’ve led across banking, lending and fintech. DM me if you’d like a 30 minute call - no pitch, just high-trust advice.

Hiring globally sounds exciting — until contracts and compliance show up at your door. Most founders I talk to admit it: they just wing it. They hire someone abroad, send money through PayPal, Wise or Payoneer, skip the paperwork… and hope for the best. The truth? That “we’ll fix it later” mindset can cost you equity, IP rights, and serious legal trouble down the road. Here’s how smart founders handle it (without hiring a lawyer full-time): ✅ Use clear, written agreements — even for contractors ✅ Define ownership and deliverables early ✅ Keep hiring records in one place (no messy spreadsheets) ✅ Partner with recruiters who understand cross-border hiring realities That last part matters more than you think. At TrustyRecruit, we help startups hire global talent the right way — fast, compliant, and transparent. Hiring remote shouldn’t feel risky. It should feel empowering especially when your partner is providing custom price for your budget regardless their standard pricing. Interested to see for yourself? Fill in the form below, and our team will prepare the custom hiring plan for your needs! https://linkly.link/2KOxy #hiring #remotework #startups #compliance #recruitment #TrustyRecruit #PayPal #Wise #Payoneer

90 days! That was the timeline this FinTech client gave me when they called. They were about to enter a critical product phase, building the foundation for enterprise-grade stablecoin infrastructure, and needed a Head of Product who could operate as both architect and executor. Someone who could guide the roadmap, get their hands dirty, and help the company hit 2026 running. We spoke about what success would look like at day 7, 15, 30, and 90, not a list of “requirements,” but outcomes: Build shared context fast. Unblock delivery risks early. Ship something visible by day 30. Institutionalize reliability by day 90. The challenge? Most PMs with crypto or FinTech backgrounds leaned too far in one direction, either pure strategy or too deep in technical execution. We needed someone who could bridge compliance, GTM, and engineering, while keeping momentum high. After several weeks of targeted outreach, conversations with product leaders from Stripe, Brex, and early-stage infrastructure companies, one stood out: clear product vision, startup grit, and the ability to turn “Issue → Hold → Move” into a real roadmap. They start this month. This search reminded me, in FinTech, great hiring isn’t about titles or years of experience. It’s about timing, clarity, and context. Get those right, and the rest follows. Curious what it takes to land or hire at this level? I’m always happy to share insights from the trenches.

🎯 Myth vs Reality: Embedded Recruitment Myth: Embedded recruitment = just an extra pair of hands. Reality: It’s an on-demand hiring engine — built to flex with your business. From intake → sourcing → assessment → compliance → onboarding, it’s full-cycle talent delivery, plugged directly into your culture and systems. At Vermelo, we design embedded teams that scale fast, reduce agency spend, and keep hiring quality high - even in complex, regulated industries like insurance, fintech, and tech. Because great hiring isn’t just about more hands. It’s about the right engine. ⚙️ What do you think most people still misunderstand about embedded recruitment? #RPO #EmbeddedRecruitment #RaaS #TalentAcquisition #Hiring #Recruitment #TalentOps #Insurance #Fintech