The fintech industry continues to grow rapidly thanks to its constant innovation. To give you an idea of how much, the market is expected to reach a value of 332.5 billion US dollars by 2028.
The latest technologies, including artificial intelligence and augmented reality, are unlocking enormous powers that will revolutionize the industry, Examples include the ability to improve financial services via better fraud detection, customer service, risk management, etc.
A report by PwC stated that automation and fintech solutions could reduce the cost of financial services by up to 90%. For example, 73% of US businesses make cross-border payments daily. The KYC laws behind these cause significant delays and require large staffing inputs. All these can be reduced by using digital technologies to automate the process.
This very innovative and lucrative market offers many opportunities to financial institutions and investors. If you plan to build innovative fintech software to tap into this market then you require highly-skilled fintech application developers with high-level development knowledge and experience.
The competitive fintech software market makes it difficult for businesses to find and hire top-class software developers as they are in demand. However, with the right tips and guidance, you can find the right people for your fintech development project.
You might think that it is a good idea to hire freelance developers from popular freelance platforms, however, this is a risky choice. Your best option is to partner with a software development company like DevTeam.Space that has experience in fintech software development. We will discuss this in more detail shortly.
First, you need to understand the skills requirements for fintech developers to make the right hiring decisions.
Primary Fintech Development Skills
Fintech software developers need the following technical skills (remember this is a general list and your requirements will be specific to your project needs):
- Strong programming skills in languages such as Java, Python, JavaScript, etc.;
- Knowledge of financial systems such as neo-banking lending, digital payments, mobile banking, trading, etc.;
- Thorough knowledge of financial industry standards and regulations to build a complaint fintech solution. Some include ISO 270001 for information security management systems, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) Regulations, General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS);
- Experience working with databases to store and manage large amounts of financial data, e.g., relational databases such as PostgreSQL and MySQL to store structured data with robust security features, NoSQL databases like Cassandra and MongoDB to store unstructured data such as user profiles, time-series databases to store data that changes over time such as stock prices, Columnar databases like Amazon Redshift and Apache HBase to store data with high querying volumes such as for financial analytics and reporting, etc.;
- Strong data analysis skills to understand and interpret financial data;
- Expertise in building algorithms and models to process financial data;
- Experience with agile software development frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban;
- Familiarity with test-driven development;
- Knowledge of various software development architectures like microservices, service-oriented, distributed, event-driven, etc.;
- Expertise in designing easy-to-use and secure APIs;
- Familiarity with REST design patterns and API documentation using tools like OpenAPI;
- Experience in API development using programming languages like Python, Java, or Node.js and frameworks such as Flask, Express, and Spring Boot;
- Understanding of API management using tools like AWS API Gateway to monitor and control access and manage API deployment and versioning;
- Experience in third-party integrations such as payment gateways, identity verification, etc., and also knowledge of authentication and authorization mechanism such as OAuth 2.0;
- Understanding of software development lifecycle;
- Expertise in DevOps practices, such as infrastructure-as-a-code to improve the provision and management of infrastructure, containerization to package and deploy applications with scalability and efficiency, security and compliance automation, etc.
Other Software Development Skills
Fintech software developers should have the following additional software development skills too (if required by your project):
1. Fintech Application Security Skills
You need developers with the expertise to develop secure software applications for financial companies. They should be familiar with security techniques such as encryption to encode sensitive data and prevent unauthorized access, authentication to implement user verification in fintech software via biometrics, multi-factor authentication, etc.
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Your developers should also be experts in risk assessment to identify security vulnerabilities and mitigate security risks to sensitive user information.
2. Expertise in the Latest Technologies
You require developers who are up-to-date with the latest technologies if you want to develop innovative software applications for fintech companies. Some latest technologies your developers should be aware of and well-versed in (should you have this requirement) include the following:
- Blockchain: Blockchain technology offers a transparent and secure way to store and process data. Your developers could use blockchain for identity verification, secure payments, etc.
You might require developers familiar with public and private blockchain networks, smart contracts development, blockchain platforms such as Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric, smart contracts programming languages such as Solidity, etc.
- Artificial Intelligence: Developers use machine learning for manual task automation and advanced deep learning to help understand historical data and human behavioral patterns to make predictions. As mentioned above, AI can help you with fraud detection, personalized financial advice, risk management, etc.
You will need developers familiar with ML algorithms like clustering, classification, neural networks, etc. They should have experience using AI tools and libraries to accelerate AI model development and deployment.
- Internet of Things (IoT): IoT enables secure and efficient financial transactions via contactless payments, asset tracking, risk management, and better customer service via sensors, devices, and data.
Should your project require it, you will need developers with an understanding of IoT protocols such as MQTT and REST, sensor integrations, predictive data analytics, etc. They should be familiar with IoT platforms such as AWS IoT and Google Cloud IoT, IoT development kits, Edge computing platforms such as AWS Greengrass, etc.
3. Cloud Computing Skills
It is highly likely that you will require developers skilled in cloud computing services who have lots of past expertise in using cloud platforms. For example, your developers could use Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, etc., to build a scalable and efficient app that benefits from secure fintech software hosting, reliable data storage, etc.
Your developers should also know virtualization to deploy cloud applications via portable and lightweight containers using tools like Kubernetes. You need to partner with developers skilled in serverless computing platforms such as AWS Lambda and Azure Functions to run applications without requiring your team to manage the servers and infrastructure.
4. Code Review skills
You require fintech developers with exceptional code review skills to ensure the quality, security, and maintainability of fintech applications. You will need senior developers with extensive development experience and attention to detail, something which helps them identify bugs and issues in the code.
Your developers should also be familiar with code standards and practices such as writing simple code, code refactoring, etc., and tools such as GitLab, which enable developers to review and comment on changes in code files. They should also be able to collaborate with other developers to perform code review sessions and proficient in using code analysis tools such as SonarQube to identify code issues.
5. Communication and Team Skills
Good fintech software developers also need soft skills, some of which are as follows:
6. Communication:
You require developers with good verbal and speaking skills to effectively communicate with other team members and stakeholders and explain technical issues and abstract concepts.
7. Problem-Solving:
Developers should have good problem-solving skills to build complex fintech solutions. They need good analytical skills to identify patterns in data and develop optimized systems.
8. Passion for Excellence:
You require motivated financial software developers passionate about developing innovative software using cutting-edge technologies for a fintech company. They should be eager to learn new technologies and implement advanced capabilities in your fintech software.
9. Empathy:
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Developers need to empathize with the end user’s needs and requirements. You require developers able to understand users’ perspectives and implement these into the software application.
How to Find and Hire Fintech Software Developers?
You are now familiar with the skills requirements for the best fintech software developers and so are ready to start the hiring process. You need to go through the following steps:
1. Decide the platform to hire fintech software developers
You require a professional team of competent fintech developers to build a feature-rich and secure fintech application. Therefore, you have to build the right team for custom software development.
You might think of hiring freelance developers from freelance platforms as they offer access to lots of professionals who seem to be cheap. It is advised that you stay clear from freelance software development services as working with freelancers comes with several drawbacks.
To start with, freelance marketplaces are available to anyone, which makes them very saturated. Next, there is no thorough vetting process that guarantees the credibility of a freelancer. Freelance platforms do not help with the screening of freelancers.
You have to interview freelance developers yourself, and a misjudgment on your part can cost you gravely. Results include losing time and money during development and being left with a poorly developed software application.
We suggest you partner with a credible software development company with experience in fintech software development like DevTeam.Space. All software developers at DevTeam.Space go through a thorough screening process which consists of elaborate technical interviews and tests.
Senior developers manage our dev teams and guide them through the development process. Our developers also follow an AI-powered agile process that assists with project management via task assignments, daily/weakly updates, streamlined communication, etc.
2. Interview the shortlisted candidates:
Now that you have selected the hiring platform and posted your job requirements, you have received multiple resumes from interested fintech developers. You now need to shortlist applicants and call them for interviews.
You need to assess the fintech domain knowledge of software developers in addition to their application development skills. Ask them questions to judge their hands-on experience in application development using the latest technologies and tools.
Give importance to meeting non-functional requirements. Ask developers how they build a scalable, testable, and maintainable software application. Present them with development scenarios and ask how they would achieve specific software requirements.
3. Explain your fintech project in detail:
After you have hired your fintech software developer, you can start the onboarding process. Set up communication channels and arrange meetings with new developers and existing team members. You need to describe your fintech software development project to them. Explain your project goals and objectives.
Also, provide new developers access to the project documentation and code repositories. We suggest you design a project plan, assign tasks, set milestones, and track progress. A simple and smooth onboarding process will help your developers efficiently settle into your project team and effectively contribute to the project’s success.
Tips to Hire the Best Fintech Software Developers
A few tips to hire good fintech developers include the following:
1. Hire a remote team lead:
You will likely plan to work with remote fintech software developers as remote developers offer multiple benefits; you can hire from a global talent pool, do not have to set up and maintain office spaces, etc.
Should you not have one, you can hire a team lead who specializes in fintech software development. This team lead will mentor and guide your remote team members and help you in project management (Note, DevTeam.Space’s complimentary team leaders assigned to your project will have extensive industry experience so can help you with this). Look for a senior fintech professional with experience in software development and extensive domain knowledge.
2. Look for a range of experience and expertise:
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There is a wide range of software developers in the market with considerably varying skill sets and application development experience. You might think of hiring junior or mid-level software developers as they are quickly available at a reasonable hourly rate. However, you should not entrust your complete fintech software development project to developers with entry-level experience.
You require senior developers on your team with experience in software development for your specific industry. These developers come at a higher cost, but their experience and expertise in cutting-edge technologies and several software architectures will help you make the right development decisions and build a robust and secure fintech application.
3. Look for fintech software development companies with a flexible hiring model:
You need a flexible model to hire developers for complex fintech application development. A simple fixed-cost model will not work as industry regulations, advancements in the underlying development technologies, etc., will influence your project. End-user requirements also frequently change.
A flexible times-and-materials model gives the flexibility to change project specifications and the resources required to fulfill them during the development process. This means that you are able to spend your time and money most effectively.
We advise you to also talk with other clients of any candidate software development company that you plan to hire from to assess their financial software development services accurately.
Example Interview Questions to Ask Fintech Software Developers
You need to ask questions to assess the hands-on development skills of a financial software developer. Some example questions are as follows:
1. How can you write optimized code for a fintech application for better performance?
Some practices to optimize the code performance include:
- Using the correct data types to minimize the number of type conversions;
- Writing a simple code that is easier to debug;
- Avoiding unnecessary calculations and computations;
- Caching frequently used data, such as in a loop, etc.;
2. Which microservices pattern would you use to read and write heavy applications?
CQRS (Command and Query Responsibility Segregation) is used to read and write heavy software applications as it separates read and write (updates) operations for a data store. The separation helps avoid merge conflicts from update commands. CQRS implementation improves the performance, security, and scalability of an application.
3. What is list comprehension in Python?
It is an efficient way of creating a new list. The syntax is new_list = [x + 1 for x in numbers]
As the size of the result is known, the memory is allocated upfront, which makes it more efficient than dynamically adding elements to the list, as in a For Loop.
Submit a Project with Zero Risk
Fintech software development is a complex project dependent on stringent industry standards and advanced technologies. You require highly-skilled developers with extensive fintech domain knowledge to undertake the fintech software development project. Why hire anything but the best software developers for your project?
DevTeam.Space is a community of field-expert software developers with experience building software solutions for several industries using cutting-edge technologies. All our developers are vetted for their software development skills and managed by senior developers.
If you plan to partner with our dedicated developers for fintech software development services, you can send us your initial project specifications via this form. One of our account managers will get in touch to discuss further details on how our high-quality developers can help you build innovative fintech software.