(Editor’s note: This curated careers post about Europe’s hottest tech startups hiring talent is part of Dispatches’ Tech Tuesdays series. Dispatches covers tech because the sector is the major expat employer of highly skilled internationals.)
This is a crazy time to be in tech. Crazy good. That’s because American, British and Asian investors are moving into Europe with – in aggregate – trillions to invest. And that means European founders at tech startups suddenly have more than lame government subsidies and loans and can finally expand at the same rate as their counterparts in the rest of the world. And yes, there will be a few Wirecard dumpster fires. But overall, this is a boom time like no other.
PitchBook just reported that VC activity here reached an historic quarterly high in Q1 investing 17.6 billion euros in about 1,900 deals across Europe, with 2021 on track to break all records. Which weren’t all that lofty to begin with, as it’s taken U.S.-based venture capital firms a while to rediscover Europe. But there are now more Unicorns across Europe than ever before, at least 70 on the books as of 1 June, according to Sifted.
Our job is to tell you, the the English-speaking highly skilled international, about careers at the hottest tech startups and scale-ups … companies you might have never heard of. And most of the jobs require English fluency at the business level.
We’ve culled through the current list of the newest Unicorns, curating careers at these five companies with the biggest raises and the most jobs. But nearly every website we looked at had a little tab at the top marked, “we’re hiring.”
MessageBird
Based in Amsterdam, MessageBird just raised $1 billion in a Series-C round with Wall Street darling BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm, joining the parade.
This startup makes the cloud-based software behind company-to-customer interactions including customer service, online orders, returns and queries. MessageBird reaches more than 7 billion devices, serves more than 25,000 business customers and operates across 10 global hubs, with a total of 700 employees representing 55 countries, according to its website.
As of early June, MessageBird has more than 50 job openings, with the majority in engineering and the majority of those jobs in Europe, the United Kingdom or remote.
Here’s a sample:
Engineering manager in London for MessageBird Pusher:
- Lead a team of 10-plus engineers
- Collaborate on roadmaps with Product Managers, Principals and Team Leads
- Establish development best practices
- Set the right balance between finding opportunities for the team to learn/improve and shipping products on time
- Set goals and directions for teams and team members
MessageBird scores a 3.6 rating out of 5 on Glassdoor but with just a few reviews posted.
Trade Republic
If Europe excels anywhere, it’s in fintech, from TransferWise to, well, to Berlin-based Trade Republic.
Now, Trade Republic is taking on the Robinhoods and E-Trades – the Americans and Israelis – in the equities trading apps sector. Trade Republic doesn’t charge a commission, generating revenue from the flat 1 euro ($1.22) fee it charges per trade, according to CNBC. Of course, there are about 6 billion trades per day just in the United States, so investors see the potential. Duh. Trade Republic just raised $900 million on a valuation of $5.3 billion … and that capital has the startup on a fast-growth curve, with dozens and dozens of job openings.
The round, a Series C, was led by American venture capital firm Sequoia, one of the most famous of the Sand Hill Road firms. Which tells you how excited the Americans are about Europe these days.
Trade Republic has 117 openings, all listed as being in Berlin. The categories with the most jobs are customer service and mobile engineering, though internationalization is hot as the startup expands across Europe. There are positions open for country managers in Austria, Italy and Spain.
Trade Republic gets 3.6 out of 5 on Glassdoor with a tiny number of reviews.
Bitpanda
Bitpanda is a rare Austria Unicorn, a digital platform for for trading commodities – in particular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum – though you can also dabble in precious metals and trade equities. Like all the companies on this list, Bitpanda is expanding into new markets … though its recruitment highlights its HQ of Vienna and its attractions. We could have told them that.
Anyway, on the recruitment side, they have at least 110 openings, including Nordics Regional Manager, based in lovely Vienna, with the requirement that candidates speak English and one of the Scandinavian languages. That’s just Vienna. Bitpanda also has jobs in London, Istanbul, Barcelona, Madrid and other cities.
You can see all their open positions here.
Bitpanda scores well on Glassdoor, 4.6 stars out of 5, with 95 percent of the 27 reviews recommending the company.
Sinch
This isn’t a startup but a seven-year-old publicly traded company with a $11 billion market cap. Still, Stockholm-based enterprise messaging/communications platform as a service company Sinch is in the fast lane, just raising $1.1 billion in a new share issue bought up by SoftBank and others.
Sinch has more than 120 open positions on its website, with the majority in the United States, not Stockholm. Interestingly, those U.S.-based jobs indicate some major acquisitions coming, with an opening for a M&A integration deal lead in Atlanta.
From that listing:
The global M&A team works across Sinch to bring world-class technology and talent into our organization through acquisitions. The team manages sourcing, negotiating, structuring, and executing impactful acquisitions and investments and informing our strategy by identifying industry trends and maintaining relationships with startups, VCs and bankers.
Sinch, which is in 40 markets, also has jobs in Belgium, the UK, Germany and other countries in Europe.
It scores a 4.7 out of 5 rating on Glassdoor, the best on this list.
Tink
Founded in 2012 and based in Stockholm, Tink (we hate the name, by the way) is a “soonicorn,” a startup on a fast track to a $1 billion/1 billion euro valuation. Its IP is an open banking API. We spent hours trying to figure out how to explain that.
The most concise explanation we read was at Business Insider:
Tink’s APl allows more than 3,400 banks across Europe to share customers’ payment account data — if users give consent — with third parties, including fintechs, to access and develop new products. Tink can also help banks and fintechs transform customer payment account data into tangible insights and access a personal finance management (PFM) toolkit.
Tink raised 175 million euros in 2020, the most of any startup in Europe, on a valuation of about $ 800 million. And it signed several huge deals, including one with American Express. Tink’s technology is behind digital services for more than 300 global banks and fintechs including PayPal, NatWest, ABN AMRO and BNP Paribas.
Like all the companies on this list, Tink has dozens of jobs open across Europe, from Sweden to Spain. And like the rest, the positions require English fluency, and some specify native English.
Some of the more interesting include:
Product delivery manager in Madrid
Tink scores a 3.8 out of 5 on Glassdoor, but again with just a handful of employee reviews.
Other companies you should know about:
• Mambu, a cloud-based SaaS banking platform based in Berlin, has operations – and jobs – in 30 countries on six continents including Europe and Asia. You can see them here.
• UiPath, a robotics company based in New York City, was founded by Romanian entrepreneurs, so we’re putting it on the list. UiPath has 107 jobs listed in the EMEA and you can see them here.
You can see Dispatches’ careers archives here.
