August Monthly Newsletter: Making the Move from Wall Street to FinTech
Published: Tue, 08/31/21
August Monthly Newsletter: Making the Move from Wall Street to FinTech
We have added **new sections** including data on those FinTechs with 2x headcount growth!
Overview
We track people movements from the top 10 investment banks to the top 40 largest FinTechs. See the appendix for a company list.
July people moves were up approximately 50% from June, coming in at about 180 professionals. Great momentum as FinTechs continue to raise record funds. Movements originate from all top 10 investment banks and to 25+ of the top 40 FinTechs.
NYC took top spot as the hiring center of choice!
Spotlight on Geography
Location, Location, Location
If this month were the Olympics, metropolitan NYC would have barely edged out the Bay Area for the Gold with 2 more hires. NYC also saw 17 of our top 40 FinTechs picking up talent vs. 16 for the Bay Area, our Silver winner. Other, our Bronze winner, comes in at #3 with over 20 hires, demonstrating that remote work is in full swing. Other is also well diversified even though many of the companies in
this bucket are based in major cities.
It is noteworthy that Los Angeles and Chicago are well diversified with hires from 5+ FinTechs. Charlotte and Salt Lake City have strong showings but with very different FinTechs. Overall, we are encouraged by the distribution across the country and opportunities for you!
Bye-Bye Banks
During July more than 180 professionals from the top 10 investment banks moved to most of the top 40 FinTechs. All top 10 investment banks are included. Bank of America saw almost 40 professionals move to 15+ FinTechs including big names such as Robinhood, Varo Bank, and Square. Although last month JP Morgan took the lead, they checked in at about 30 professionals. UBS came in last amongst the top ten with
only a handful of professionals moving to 6 FinTechs.
Hello FinTechs
PayPal and Robinhood hired the most with 20+ professionals each. Coinbase continued aggressive hiring with 15+ and Brex came in at 5+.
13 FinTechs including First Boulevard, Marqueta, Galileo, Digit and Divvy did not participate in hiring. Betterment, BlueVine, Brighthealth, Dataminr, Opendoor, and Ripple each picked up fewer than 5 professionals.
Seniority
Senior hires constituted about 70% with mid-level hires about 20% and junior level hires at about 10%. We continue to see the trend towards more senior level hires as the FinTechs mature. Great news for the 50+ year old crowd like the author!
Affirm, PayPal, Robinhood, and Brex really like senior professionals. Plaid, SoFi, and Stripe trended towards mid-level professionals.
Job Role IT professionals continue to represent the most common job role, but only about 25%. Operations, finance, and sales remain strong at 15% + each of the total. Although marketing and research had the lowest representation, we note that all the job roles we cover were represented.
Most of SoFi’s hires came with a finance background. nCino hired across the board from operations, HR, sales, etc.
FinTechs with the Fastest Growing Headcount
Did you know that Better hired over 3,600 professionals over the past 12 months, with 362 hires in July alone? How about Coinbase with 1,000+ and 150 last month.
Sezzle, Chime, Doma, Pagaya, Altruist and many others doubled their headcount. In fact, for the 50 Fintechs with the fastest growing headcount with at least 50 professionals, they hired a combined total of 10,000 people last year.
NYC based FinTechs hired 40% of the talent. That’s about 4,000 jobs! 25% of the jobs were from companies headquartered in San Francisco, leaving 35% for other cities.
Why not you?
Client Spotlight
Hamesh was a derivatives trader from 4 top investment banks. He was in between jobs when we met, feeling frustrated and worn out. He could not understand with all his years of Wall Street trading experience, why he only received 2 interviews from his online applications.
We sat down and focused on networking. He told me he already reached out to 20-30 of his closest contacts. All promised to keep their eye open for him for positions on the sell-side, buy-side and FinTech.
I asked him a single question which blew his mind. I asked him how many of the 20-30 professionals he had contacted by email or LinkedIn every month? He said 0. I asked how many he followed on LinkedIn to like or comment on their posts? He said 0.
We put together a strategic outreach program with his contacts, discussing timelines, topics, messages and more. By keeping up regular monthly communication without being a pain in the ass (DM me for how), he stayed top of mind. An old marketing proverb dictates that you need 7 consumer impressions to get noticed.
After using the outreach strategy, one of Hamesh’s 20-30 contacts received a call from a Crypto recruiter about a job in which he had no interest. The contact connected Hamesh with the recruiter.
1. Are institutional investors really getting into Crypto?
2. Don’t you need to code to get into FinTech?
3. How do I enter FinTech if most of my contacts are on Wall Street?
4. Can I work in FinTech while still staying at a Wall Street shop?
Answers appear at the end
Quiz
What year did the expression “Cryptocurrency” first appear?
1. 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto created bitcoin
2. 1950’s when IBM experimented with digital money with US Federal Reserve
3. 1998 when Wei Dai developed the first concept of decentralization
4. 1983 when David Chaum, cryptographer, first developed eCash
5. 1968 when Mike Mittleman uttered his first words before “Mama”
Courtesy of “A short history of cryptocurrencies” by Davies.
Answers appear at the end
The End
Q&A Answers
1. Yes, including Blackrock, Fidelity, UBS, and many more which have been active for 2+ years
2. You don’t need to code, but you must have an appreciation for coding since key members of a Fintech are developers. Coursera offers some great basic courses for non-technical pros
3. You can but applying online won’t get you there; try contacting your university and former company alumni who work in FinTech even if you’ve never met them.
4. Yes, depending upon your job role; check out Where Top US Banks are betting on Fintech
Top 10 Investment Banks and Top 40 FinTechs we follow:
Data Compiled From: LinkedIn, Bloomberg, CB insights, LendIt Fintech, and others.
Investment Banks: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citi, UBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Barclays, and JP Morgan.
