Mass layoffs are hitting the tech industry in the US and Europe, but unicorn banking startup Revolut announced plans to increase its workforce by 20% in August.
Major firms such as Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla have all laid off staff or frozen hiring. Revolut’s fintech peers such as Coinbase, Robinhood, and Klarna have also slashed roles.
Revolut is growing and “expanding in many countries,” global head of HR Alexandra Loi said in an interview. The company is being “cautious” in the downturn about hiring the right people for the right roles, but it is still “fully going on with recruitment.”
Revolut was launched by founders Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko in 2015, offering banking services globally. Users can make online payments and purchases across various currencies through its apps and debit cards. The firm’s valuation has grown to $33 billion, though Storonsky has ruled out an IPO for the time being.
In 2019, the firm was accused by then-employees of creating a culture of burnout, unpaid work, high turnover, and tough goals, in an investigation by Wired in 2019. Storonsky published an open letter in 2019 responding to these claims saying “we haven’t always gotten things right,” but that the company is not the same as it was “12 to 18 months ago when these mistakes were made.”
Loi described the culture as “diverse” and “supportive” adding that there remain high expectations and a “high-performance culture.”
The firm isn’t hiring gung-ho, introducing some cost-cutting measures including rescinding offers for four graduate roles in September. Loi said that the company is still hiring for over 200 roles, primarily in engineering, sales, and other corporate functions. She emphasized that people with STEM-related degrees or degrees from top universities are strong candidates.
There’s a range of open roles currently on Revolut’s website including for a 3D designer, a backend software engineer in crypto, and a growth marketing manager in Europe. Loi said the firm received more than 250,000 applications in the first three months of the year across 576 positions.
Senior staff at the company are compensated with six-figure base salaries depending on location, according to previous Insider reporting on the company’s foreign-disclosure-hire data in the US between 2019 and 2021. The highest paid salary in the data set was $300,000 for an operations partner. A head of crypto made $250,000 and a senior backend engineer made $175,000.
The hiring process includes sending a résumé and Linkedin profile; a phone screening; three interviews to check technical skills, problem-solving skills, and cultural fit.
