Building a 30-person tech team across 5 countries for a fintech
Fintechs all share the same challenge: turning a fundraiser into a team capable of delivering. The first few months after a round table are decisive. Every week without a senior developer, lead data or security manager is a week late on a road map that investors know by heart.
The European tech talent market remains tense, and fintechs compete for the same profiles. When a French Fintech specializing in B2B payment contacted Cadran Talents, she didn't just want CVs. She wanted to understand. where find the right people, then convince them. She needed a full team in five countries in five months.
The challenge: recruit 30 people without losing team culture
Our customer, a payment scale-up that has recently obtained his approval for payment establishment in several countries, had clear European ambitions and a familiar problem: a tech team of twelve people in Paris, brilliant but exhausted, and a roadmap that implied having forty.
He needed answers, and fast.
The brief was precise: to constitute, through a mechanism of recruitment tech, a team of 30 people distributed between Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Barcelona and Amsterdam. Back-end and front-end developers, data engineers, payment security experts, product managers, and three local team managers. All with a homogeneous level of demand and a common culture.
Most importantly, the client wanted recruitments that hold, not thirty signed contracts, one third of which would have to be repeated in the year.
Our approach: large-scale, human recruitment
This is where things get interesting. A classic approach would treat a project like this country by country, in series. It would have taken a year. We chose to conduct the five markets in parallel, with central management and local consultants.
We formed a team covering the five countries, Germany, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and France, and conducted the entire mission in five months, from the first brief to the last signed contract.
The secret? Local expertise combined with central coordination.
Each market had a native consultant who understood not only the language but also the usages: what a Berlin developer expects from an offer, why a Lisbon engineer hesitates to join a foreign company, how a remuneration is negotiated in Amsterdam. The nuances that make the difference between an accepted offer and a declined offer.
Our sourcing process has been deliberately rigorous. We weren't looking for blockchain enthusiasts ready to talk about hours. We mention engineers who have already worked on payment systems in production, able to compare architectures and reason in regulatory constraints. Finding these profiles required more than a keyword search: precise mapping of the companies they work in, and then a personal approach.
Behind the scenes: what we really did
Each interview lasted 60 to 90 minutes and followed a semi-structured frame. We wanted coherence between countries, but we also wanted to give room to what really matters: the journey, the technical choices, the reasons for a departure or a desire for change.
The process combined several elements:
A journey interview, during which the candidate told us about his latest projects, decided by decision. Where did he feel comfortable? Where did he need help? What else would he have done?
A technical exercise in real-life conditions, designed with the client's CTO : a code review and an architecture discussion, without exercise trap or timed test. We were looking for a way to reason, not a performance.
A projection. What would it look like? ideal team In two years? What would make him stay? What would make him leave?
Throughout the mission, CTO and client team leaders participated in the final visio interviews. This was not surveillance: it was the fastest way to create a relationship between future colleagues from the first contact.
The CTO told us:
I learned more about our attractiveness in three weeks of interviews than in six months to look at our application statistics.
What we have learned: what European engineers really want
The interviews shook several certainties of the management team. Here's what came out:
Trust is built in unexpected moments. Candidates didn't just want a good salary: they wanted signs visible I'm serious. A return within 48 hours after each step, a clear explanation of the continuation of the process and full transparency on remuneration from the first exchange weighed heavier than any advantage in kind.
A demanding process is not a pushback. That surprised everyone. Senior candidates, particularly in Germany and the Netherlands, were waiting a structured process. When a company recruits too quickly, it arouses mistrust rather than enthusiasm. "If they don't take the time to seriously evaluate, how do they assess my future colleagues?" said a Berlin engineer.
Localization goes further than translation. Several technically correct offers sounded false for local candidates. Post titles, presentation of benefits and tone of offer had to be tailored to each country, not only translated.
Expectations on telework vary greatly. The Dutch and Portuguese candidates regarded hybrid work as acquired; the Spanish and French candidates gave more importance to the presence of a real local team and an office where to meet.
The "why" behind each step counts. In all countries, candidates were willing to accept a technical exercise when they understood its purpose. Unexplained requests, in particular generic tests, resulted in several good profiles even before the first interview.
The result: a team in place, and that remains
The mission's teachings were not only interesting: they changed the way in which the client was recruited.
Thirty people joined the company in five months: twenty-two engineers, four data profiles, one security manager and three local team managers. A year later, twenty-eight are still in office. The client has reviewed his internal recruitment process from our returns: response times, interview frame, pay transparency.
The mission also influenced broader decisions on the order of market opening and the choice of cities. Understanding how engineers in each country perceive a fintech foreign, and not only if they are available, has provided management with a solid basis for future recruitment.
The most precious, perhapsThe CTO and its team leaders now share a common vision of what attracts, and what makes leaks, the best profiles. Interview reports have become a reference document that the team consults before each job opening.
Why this approach works
Recruiting in several countries at a time is notoriously complex. Coordinating languages, time zones, legal frameworks and usages while maintaining a level of homogenous requirement requires an infrastructure that few companies have internally.
That's precisely why Cadran Talents exists.
We took care of everything: mapping, approach, interviews, technical evaluation, reference, negotiation and integration follow-up. The client had a single contact person, weekly reporting and full visibility on each post in each country.
The result? A complete, consistent and faithful team, formed in a few months rather than a year. A fine understanding of each market that no recruitment platform could have provided.
You have to set up a team?
Whether you're opening a new country, structuring an existing team or trying to figure out why your offers don't convert, we can help you recruit people who will make a difference.
Contact us to discuss how Cadran Talents can be your team, wherever you are in Europe.
Frequently asked questions
How do you recruit engineers for a fintech?
We combine a mapping of the companies where the profiles are used, a personalized direct approach and a technical evaluation designed with your CTO. We are not looking for keywords: we are looking for people who have already solved the problems you encounter.
What is the usual time frame for multi-country tech recruitment?
Most team-building missions take place over three to six months, depending on the number of posts, the countries concerned and the scarcity of profiles. The first presentations usually take place within two to three weeks by mail.
Can managers participate in the interviews?
Absolutely. We organise final visio interviews with your managers, wherever they are, and we prepare them upstream so that each exchange serves as much to evaluate as to convince. The best candidates choose a team, not a company.
How does the cultural context influence the fintech recruitment ?
Expectations of remuneration, telework, process and hierarchical relationship vary greatly from one European country to another. Our local consultants adapt the approach, the content of the offer and the pace of the interviews to each market.
What differentiates the direct approach to an advertisement?
An announcement affects those who seek; the direct approach affects those who are Good. Fintech's senior engineers are almost all on duty and solicited every week. Only a personal, reasoned and credible approach gets a conversation, then a decision.
Are you intervening outside Europe?
Yes. Cadran Talents works in more than 25 countries, with consultants and partners in North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Pilotage is still available from Paris or Lyon, with a single contact.
