If you are a software engineer or anyone else considering working for a start-up fintech or a large bank, the riches that have flowed and should flow again shortly to the employees Revolution it might push you towards a fintech. Even mid-table Revolution people benefited enormously from working there.

Click here to subscribe to our fintech newsletter 🤖

“Revolut has changed a lot of people’s lives,” says one employee who left the company a few years ago after working at Revolut for five years. “It allowed me to buy a house in London outright. My reality is completely different because of the time I worked there.”

Obviously Revolut doesn’t any fintech. It is Europe’s leading fintech unicorn and is targeting a $40 billion valuation in an upcoming share sale, which would make it Europe’s most valuable start-up. A former Revolut product manager describes it as “the UK version of Paypal or Amazon in terms of technology focus, work culture and follow-up opportunities”. It’s not an easy employer: “it’s one of the most challenging start-ups to work for,” he adds.

Revolut declined to comment for this article, but by the reckoning of several former employees we spoke to, there are “hundreds” of paper millionaires at Revolut waiting to cash out, as well as 20 or 30 people sitting on £8m or £15m. million pounds. and a small group of early-stage employees sitting on hundreds of millions.

The latter group includes Revolut founder Nik Storonsky. It is also thought to include key people like Edward Cooper, who joined in 2015 as head of mobile and now runs the cryptocurrency effort, as well as people like Michael Sherwood, the table tennis-playing former Goldman Sachs boss in London who joined Revolut’s board in 2020. People on £8m to £10m include vice-chairmen at Revolut and partners who worked there or started working there before 2019. Paper millionaires include other employees who were there five years ago or more.

Many of those on the verge of becoming rich through Revolut are in their 20s and 30s. There are a lot of people in the product, says an insider. There are also many software engineers. As Revolut’s valuation has risen, even relatively small amounts of shares paid out as bonuses in the past have increased significantly in value. “I know a 2019 senior engineer who received an £80,000 share bonus who is now worth over £600,000,” says one insider. In 2019, Revolut was valued at $5.5 billion. If the price of $40 billion were reached, it would be a more than sevenfold increase in value.

Some insiders suggest the gains are even more dramatic because Revolut used to subsidize the shares it offered to employees. The next share sale aims to hit a price of $441 per share, an insider says. Six years ago, Revolut reportedly granted shares to some employees at a price of just £10 with a vesting period of four years. There are unconfirmed stories of former mid-level engineers buying large homes in the most desirable areas of west London and then moving to Dubai.

One of those believed to be in the category of employees with hundreds of millions in Revolut shares is Alan Chang, the 30-year-old who joined Revolut at the age of 21 in 2015 and became chief revenue officer. Chang left in March 2022 after selling shares in the 2021 fundraising and now runs an energy start-up. He did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Revolut insiders say the company has been generous in allowing both current and former employees to cash out when it sells shares. In 2021, they say former employees were limited to selling 10% of their holdings, while former employees could sell 20%. In the next cash raise it is rumored that only existing employees will be able to sell. Some former employees tell us they are saddened by this. The lucrative growth shares, issued to selected employees in 2021, appear to be excluded from the sale.

Even if he could sell, a former Revolut employee says he will hold on to his Revolut shares. “In my opinion it is very likely that Revolut has further growth potential of at least 3x over the next five years,” he tells us. The key to unlocking this growth is obtaining a UK banking license, which he says depends on Revolut improving its financial reporting. “They have invested enormously in improving these systems over the past few years and I expect they will see the full benefit of this work in the next year or two,” he says. Although Revolut CFO Victor Stinga appears relatively young, he says Stinga is highly capable and “very trusted” by Storonsky. “The problems Revolut faces with its financial audit are not related to the expertise of senior financial professionals, but are almost entirely technical,” he adds. “It’s a pain inherited from exponential growth and increasing complexity, and financial systems are catching up. The most experienced CFOs don’t have anywhere near enough technical knowledge and experience.”

If Revolut’s valuation increased another three to five times, employees could become even richer. The company plans to increase headcount by 40% this year. Finding work there is not easy: 500 people apply for each of them.

However, the days of truly making huge money from Revolut share bonuses may be over. Insiders say the shares are no longer offered to employees at the same generous discounts available five years ago. “There was a real golden window of opportunity at Revolut from 2017 to 2022/3,” says the former product manager. “Now the growth opportunity is not the same.”

Even if you don’t make millions from your time at Revolut, working there can transform yours CV. “Revolut has a brand that gave me access to job opportunities I never imagined,” reflects one former employee. However, don’t expect your time at Revolut to be easy. “Everyone there is a certain type of person,” says another former employee. “- They are bankers, not technicians.”

Do you have a confidential story, tip or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill out our anonymous formor email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.

Please bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by humans. Sometimes these humans may be sleeping or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will, unless it is offensive or defamatory (in which case it won’t).

Source