The 30-year old ex-Goldman Sachs analyst whom 100s of people want to work for
Alexis Augier is not Nik Storonsky from Revolut, but there are similarities. Augier and Storonsky both worked in banks (Augier was a Goldman analyst, Storonsky a trader at Credit Suisse). Both founded fintechs. Both are in London. And both are deluged with people who want to work for them.
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"We had hundreds of applicants from the best investment banks and MBB consulting firms in just a few days," says Augier of recent released job advertisements for product and founder's associate roles at Vega, the fintech he founded after leaving hedge fund Elliott Investment in 2022. "We have been able to attract exceptional talent across all levels."
Founders associates - or elite entry level hires who work closely with the CEO - are straight out of the Storonsky playbook. Vega has a long way to go before it achieves Revolut's 10,000 person headcount and $45bn valuation, but Augier has raised over $28m in funding from Apollo, Motive, Picus Capital, Citi Ventures, and elsewhere.
Vega has been using this funding to add talent. Since mid-2024, it's gone from 17 to 50 people, and Augier predicts it will have around 70 employees by the end of 2025. "We're building a talent engine at the intersection of private equity and technology," he says.
More prosaically, Vega is building an operating system called AltOS, which helps alternative investment firms "service and scale their client base in an era of hypergrowth for alternatives." - Vega is "at the forefront of the digital transformation of private markets," says Augier. Private equity, credit, real estate and infrastructure investment firms are in a "race towards operational scalability."
Vega doesn't just have job titles like Revolut. As we noted last November, it hires from Revolut too: Anton Batiaev, the former head of Revolut's wealth and trading platform, is a senior engineer there. Vega has also recruited the likes of Sebastien Lebaillif who was leading Deutsche Bank’s FX options engineering, plus juniors from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
Storonsky has a reputation for hard work and for expecting the same of his recruits. Augier doesn't seem dissimilar. He tells us he's obsessed with "talent density" and that his focus is on hiring "A-players" who are bored at banks and fintechs. - "We are aiming to solve a really big problem for the industry, this requires hard work and intensity," he adds. "We are firm believers that pressure is a privilege."
Early employees at Revolut became very rich. Aleksandr Popov, a Python developer who spent two and a half years at Revolut, stands to make £30m+ from the eventual IPO, for example. At Vega, Augier says he's giving hires equity and "rewarding them disproportionately." This implies very hard work, but Augier says people are given autonomy over their hours. "We are all adults," he reflects.
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