What sort of skill sets should I equip myself with now if I am interested in making a career switch to fintech at 28 years old?

As FinTech is gaining momentum with every passing year, there is a great demand for professionals with specific FinTech skills. According to Igor Kaparis (the CEO of International Fintech) skills required for jobs in Fintech industry are Website development (Full Stack), App development and maintenance, UI/UX design and implementation, Product APIs, AI and Machine Learning, Cybersecurity knowledge, Blockchain, Distributed Ledgers, and Soft skills.

The way i see it, there are 2 broad scopes in fintech jobs - sales and software engineering. My background is software engineering so I will say that software engineering is a mountain to conquer if you come from a totally different background. An online course will probably just get you to the foot of the mountain, following maps can get you there but scaling it requires totally different skills. Sales on the other hand seems to have a lower barrier to entry.

If you don't know where to start, I'd suggest reaching out to people on LinkedIn who have jobs in fintech that you might be interested in. Tell them you're keen to find out more about how they got to where they are, and ask if they'd be willing to have a coffee chat with you. Make sure you do some solid homework first, because if they respond you'll need to have good questions prepared.

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I've tried this a few times myself and got some very useful advice about conferences to attend, tips to navigate new environments, and skills/angles to focus on.

FinTech seems abit broad! You also need to ask yourself what aspect of the startup you would want to join. There are largely two main functions in any Fintech company (or startup for that matter):

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Function 1: Product & Engineering

• This aspect is way more complicated to join
• Requires more than 1 - 2 years of work experience before getting a meaningful career opportunity
• For us, we also see alot of people applying but lack a ton of real world exprerience actually building products
• For fintech specific, depends how deep you are looking to go. For a person doing a career switch, probably a front end role would suit best (but again, based on how many projects you have done before)
• Just doing 1 x course in some online program, will not adequetely help you understand how to build any real products, you should join as a intern or do hackathons or personal projects

Function 2: Marketing

• This is more straightforward and more personality based
• How do you show that you are creative and also data driven at the same time
• How do you show that you learn quickly in a ever changing space
• In a sector that is always evolving with new channels, new methods and rules (every few weeks to months)
• Fun but intense work, willing to fail and learn quickly

Yup! Hope these helps, and if you are looking to chat more, you can drop me an email or a comment below at [email protected] :) Cheers! and all the best in your job-career switch.