As Revolut expands wildly, 40 people are applying for each job

While many fintechs are cutting jobs, Revolut, the UK-based digital bank, has been doing the opposite. In the past year alone, it's increased headcount by 114%.

Revolut now employs 6,000 people, up from 2,800 at the end of 2021. It's still hiring: it currently has 260 jobs open and 600 people in its pipeline. In an average month since the start of 2022, Revolut has added between 250 and 400 people.

This doesn't mean, however, that it's easy to get a job there. Sources at the company say every role receives 40 applications. The firm's graduate program, launched in December 2022, has already had 1,700 applicants for only 10 opportunities. 

The enthusiasm for working at Revolut comes despite longstanding grumbling in some quarters about the company's culture. Forum sites like Blind contain complaints from Revolut employees citing a lack of "psychological safety" at the firm and a highly demanding work environment in which people are expected to get things done irrespective of the cost. More positively, however, Revolut has a reputation for promoting people early, irrespective of their age, if they're high achievers, and for being a launchpad for fintech and start-up careers.  Farshid Ashouri, Revolut's former head of Python coding, left in December and said it was a "beautiful" place to work and that he'd never been asked to grind too hard.

Nonetheless, Revolut seems to have decided to do something about the negative perception of its culture. After surveying the results of an anonymous employee feedback survey which said only 79% of people were satisfied working there, it's launched a raft of initiatives to make itself a nicer place to work. 

These include a new culture team (called CultureLab), wellbeing days for employees (these were actually launched two year ago), days off for birthdays and more visibility on promotion requirements. In future, Revolut will also be using "people science" to drive perceptions of its employer brand. 

A spokesperson said the changes are intended to 'upgrade' the firm's culture, to "prepare for the next phase of Revolut’s journey" and to make employees proud of the culture. This all sounds very positive - unless you're an applicant and face even more competition for Revolut's roles in future.

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