Connect Podcast
00:05:24 · Adam, Vlad Yatsenko, Fred
[00:05:24] S1: And it forces you to, like, think about the context of your users when you're [00:05:29] S0: To just from culture, we we don't Yeah. Kind of... All candidates to acquire users, basically. But generally, it's more it's more like thinking about what you're doing and what's the impact of it. Yeah. Yeah. But one of the things that we have for all roles is home task as a first stage [00:05:46] S2: Mhmm. [00:05:46] S0: Which maybe some companies do this kind of screening task where you just go through a list of simple questions, just to use usually in the hiring process just to eliminate random applicants. Here's the home task. It always has this open ended element where we try to see how they kind of actually looks at the problem itself. And there's never one answer to that. [00:06:13] S2: Yeah, that's another piece, maybe the biggest piece in terms of like how unique hyper successful companies have to be in terms of their culture to be able to sustain growth through the different stages. When we look at like leadership functions there's like three main core things that we have to do. We have to hire, we have to reward properly and then we have to fire properly. So there's like these three things I am personally super interested in. If we start back from day zero, did your thinking about building a team evolve a lot? And if so like how did it evolve or were you already pretty clear on like the guiding principles and you already had that figured out and just build it from there?
00:06:13 · Fred, Vlad Yatsenko
[00:06:13] S2: Yeah, that's another piece, maybe the biggest piece in terms of like how unique hyper successful companies have to be in terms of their culture to be able to sustain growth through the different stages. When we look at like leadership functions there's like three main core things that we have to do. We have to hire, we have to reward properly and then we have to fire properly. So there's like these three things I am personally super interested in. If we start back from day zero, did your thinking about building a team evolve a lot? And if so like how did it evolve or were you already pretty clear on like the guiding principles and you already had that figured out and just build it from there? [00:06:50] S0: From the beginning, there was not... Nothing... Like much thinking Yeah. Into it. For quite some time, we were a very small team. Yeah. So it was more about every individual, literally. Like, yeah, in in in very small team, it works very different, like, when it's, like, under 10 people. [00:07:03] S2: So what were you looking for in the... Individually early on when you were picking up, like, the few members that [00:07:08] S0: you And, again, it's it's very different in terms of how you... You're not you're not as picky, first of all, in the very beginning. When you start getting your first hire, it took us at least a month. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because not many people [00:07:21] S2: are knocking knocking at your door back then.
00:07:21 · Fred, Vlad Yatsenko
[00:07:21] S2: are knocking knocking at your door back then. [00:07:23] S0: Exactly. Convincing people. And then there's a lot of young people who have no experience coming usually to start ups. So it's harder than... Initial hires, they're different people compared to hires you have at certain stage in your company. A dealer case, you would expect people grow and take more responsibilities, more ownership. It doesn't happen always naturally. Again, it's with our speed of growth. Now we are looking for candidates for, you know, heads, VPs of different business units. Yeah. So Yeah. To come with experience, but then at the same time to fit within our culture and mindset. [00:08:01] S2: What is that culture and mindset? [00:08:03] S0: You've probably seen some new Yeah. Lights around the office. [00:08:07] S2: Get it done. [00:08:08] S0: Get get it done. Get get you done. Yeah. Stronger together, never settle. Yeah. Some of those. [00:08:16] S2: I feel like culture is it's lived in every day and so on, but in terms of leaders to maintain a proper culture and a tight culture as you go, there are times that you have to, if you look at something and you see that it's off, you need to take like to be super non compromising about that. So what are the like few things that you personally have been uncompromising with your team as you grew?
00:08:37 · Vlad Yatsenko
[00:08:37] S0: Some things that are not compromisable that is just mindset of what companies, when they start with certain ideas, the trends and mindset, I think it's super important to maintain. Because if this is the core of the culture that allows the company to succeed, I mean, is where the company should never compromise. Yeah. Certain elements of culture, they will evolve and change, but some core principles, if we want continue growing and we want to solve more and more different problems in finance and around for our customers, then we have to have this mentality of thinking deeper about these problems, making sure we're solving them, improving those things all the time. And then to do it in a way, in an environment that is not just few people anymore. At the same time, you have to then think, okay, well, what does it mean for in terms of executing that? Because it's not maybe two people involved anymore, it's more people involved through the whole organization. When I speak to engineers, one of the things I stress a lot is it's not about your technical skills. No one can think about all possible corner cases and provide solution that just addresses all possible problems. Right? Including, you know, everyone involved into that. You have to compensate by communicating and calibrating with everyone else you work with. So communication is like 50% of what you do and your skill set. People divide engineers, their gigs, they don't have to talk. Yeah. They don't have to have soft skills. Yeah. I'm completely against that. Yeah. It's not even maybe about agreements. It's about, did we solve this problem and did we solve it in the best way? Yeah. It's not about, you know, you right or me Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Being right. Right? So it's a focus on the goals, the problems, communicating efficiently. Guess communicating as well is... A lot of these things are, like, very common sense. Like, it's just about respecting other people we work with. Right? One of the things... We can have a lot of criteria for the candidate is, okay, you need to know x and y maybe and have that experience. But at the end of the day, the question is, do you want to work with this person?
00:11:00 · Fred, Vlad Yatsenko
[00:11:00] S2: Yeah. Yeah. [00:11:00] S0: Right? And due to this, you feel strongly then, yes, this would be a good person to to be in the same team. Yeah. Maybe certain aspect of those other, you know, technical aspects, may be not as important because some of those things can be learned, etcetera. [00:11:17] S2: Right. Has it been difficult or how tough has it been for you to maintain relevance as the leader of the tech team in Revolut as things grew? Because you mentioned that you've never really fired anybody before, but that's one of the many many different things that you need to do very well that you need to evolve probably very fast to maintain relevance. So how tough has it been and what sort of are the key elements of that journey? [00:11:41] S0: For me personally, it was little harder than I imagined it would be. But my approach is for that specific problem is it's hard to find talent. Yeah. That's why try to fix problem at this stage. But then, you know, things do happen, not everything, you know, in interviews just, you know, very get assessed as much. Yeah. You know, there are different, know, where there is mismatch. So my approach is just to address the actual problems to figure out with, you know, with the person why something's not working. Yeah. Can we try something different? And if iterations or then there is common agreement [00:12:24] S2: Doesn't work. Yeah.
00:12:24 · Fred, Vlad Yatsenko
[00:12:24] S2: Doesn't work. Yeah. [00:12:25] S0: Doesn't work. That's true. There's no way to... There's there's no reason, you know, to force it. Right? So one of the principles always just that we have in Revolut is level of openness and transparency. Yeah. Whenever I say something, I should be able to... Or not just be able, but always explain it as well. Why do I want my team to do certain thing? Why is that important? The why is, I think that's what keeps the understanding of the purpose. Yeah. People as well engaged and connected versus corporate environments where that's why we see people living and coming to this. You don't even listen why and if you can actually impact us in any way.