How to Get a Fintech Job?
Know how you can get a job in the Fintech job with two major paths and understand how you can break-in.
There are two major ways to get a job in the Fintech area.
But before answering that question, I'd like to give some background about the Fintech Industry; based on that, we will be able to map out the paths of how you can land an opportunity in the space.
Fintech is actually a very broad industry. In its core, it has technology, but the application can vary from payment and transactions, insurance, banking, lending, wealth management, asset management, ICOs, and blockchain. Both the technology and finance areas are very technical and specialized requiring people with very focus skills and experiences. Also, we would expect that Fintech jobs in general allow freedom of movement of professionals geographically and also hierarchically, but that it is not necessary the case.
Based on that, we have two major paths to get into the Fintech area.
The first one is to get into the Fintech industry via Technology. Most Fintech companies need product and software development talent to execute their vision of a new service or product. In my experience, most work are focused on automating back-end processes or speed up the existing way of doing things. Most established companies and start-ups in Fintech require:
- Software Developers
- CTO or Head of Technology
- Project Managers
- Product Managers
- UX and UI Designers
I highly recommend you to look after those job titles and add the keyword "Fintech" when you are looking for opportunities in that space. Also, coming from Technology allows you to choose which sub area of Fintech you want to work on.
The second path is to get into the Fintech industry from the Finance industry. You can ask your friends in the Fintech area or search LinkedIn to see this main pattern: people end up in Fintech either by starting his/her own business or joining a more established Fintech entity based on their previous experience in Finance; so a person who worked previously in the insurance area, he/she will end up starting or joining a Fintech company in the Insurance space.
Differently than Technology jobs, it is harder to list the job titles from Finance that can earn someone a spot in the Fintech industry. But you can find the list below helpful since it shows the original Finance industry move to their respective Fintech equivalent:
Previous Finance Sub-Area to Fintech equivalent
| Previous Finance Sub-Area | Fintech Equivalent |
|---|---|
| Insurance | Insurance Tech |
| Banking | Fintech - Banking |
| Wealth Management | Roboadvisor |
| Lending - Mortgages | Mortgagetech or Fintech Mortgage |
| Lending - Personal | Fintech - Lending |
| Lending - B2B | Fintech - Lending |
| Payment and Transfer | PaymentTech or just Fintech |
There are many more sub categories but I'm displaying the major ones.
As mentioned before, the Fintech area requires people with experiences specially because the industry is filled with regulations and it touches people money. In theory, the Finance professionals provides the experiences to deal with the regulations and also understand the dynamics of services or products; meanwhile, the Technology people are needed to automate and transform those services into the current customer needs (e.g.: people want to have access to their accounts in their mobile apps instead of going to a bank teller.)
Because of the high level of expertise, people with more experience or skills are highly sought after and have higher chances of succeeding in the Fintech industry.
That does not mean that people fresh out of college or changing career in mid-life cannot join Fintech companies, but it is harder to break-in unless you are willing to start from the lower ranks.
At the end, those are the two major paths of getting yourself into the Fintech industry and please leave your comments below to ask questions and also comment other ways to break into the industry!
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