The nightmare of fintech hiring in 2024: Flat salaries, 17-stage interviews

It's no secret that the last year has been a tough one for fintechs, marred by a series of high-profile layoffs. Those were just the start of personnel-related woes, however, and hiring has stagnated.

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Toby Babb, CEO of fintech recruitment firm Harrington Starr, said at Fintech Connect 2024 that this year was "one of the longest downturns, if not the steepest," in fintech hiring history. People are staying in their current roles, but not because they love the work; a report from Harrington Starr this week revealed that 86% of fintech employees are either actively looking for a new job or are unhappy in their current one.

The hiring process itself has also become more contrived and convoluted. Nadia Edwards-Dashti, Harrington Starr's chief customer officer, said that "four-stage interviews used to be the norm... now we're hearing stories of 16 or 17 stage interviews." She says that this is because fintechs having a growing "perfection complex" when hiring for roles, especially those associated with previously laid off staff. 

The problem for the other employees, then, is that the work of laid-off staff has been passed on to them. Edwards-Dashti says, in addition to tech staff, senior roles in "operations and strategy have been hit as well." Those that remain have had to "upskill themselves constantly without the promotion, without the pay rise, and without the long-term stability." She says that, if fintechs don't begin rewarding these employees, we can "expect there to be some resignations."

Fintech used to be a culture thing; now it's less so. Babb says "one of the big rises in what candidates were looking for [in 2024 was] suddenly salary again." The Harrington Starr report says almost 60% of fintech employees have not received a pay rise in the past year, but Babb says big salaries are still on offer for select top roles, and "every company's biggest problem next year is keeping hold of their best talent."

The end of the year has shown signs of recovery. Babb says the "VC winter is starting to thaw into a VC spring," bringing increased headcounts and talent investment with it. Michael Abdul, founder of fintech recruitment firm Volition, says salespeople in particular are in high demand, as the key metric of success switches from valuations to profitability. He says this is an area that has seen very high turnover, both due to the firing of expensive underperformers and "people leaving because the product wasn't as good as they thought." Fintechs are now looking for salespeople "that are actually technical and understand the product, not just outbound people."

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