Todo
- Research the company (use Manus.ai for that)
- Prepare some questions
- Prepare intro and why you want to work for this company
Chat with Emily
Initial Interview with Armin Pudic
Info about interviews
- Chat with the manager
- On-site
- Tech focus (questions or pair proramming)
Company Overview
- UK number one flat-fee intestment platform
- over 400k customers and 55 b in assets under administration
- Acquired by abrdn for 1.5 billion in 2022 but operates as standalone business and brand
- 15.5 shares of UK direct investing market (HL with 38%)
- ABRDN is standard life
- Richard Wilson is a CEO
- Worked in Bank of England
- Clearly knowledable
Business model
- Flat-fee subscription-based model
- Secure platform for pensions, ISA and investment (something I am interested in)
- Provide insights and newsletters to investors. They want to create a community
Values and culture
- Mission: To help people take control of their financial future
- Values
- Straight talking - want people to feel involved, respected and connected to their values
- Moving with speed - decisive, making decisions based on information they have to keep business moving forward
- Owning the outcome - Understand profitability and how each employee contributes to revenue and success
- Customer centric approach - Care about the customers
- Non corp, informal business culture and values positive collaborative people who are go-getters and come up with ideas to solutions
- Strong focus on culture fit during hiring process
Company Assessment
Stability
- UK’s second largest Direct-to-customer investment platfgorm with 15.5% market share
- Financialy stable as backed by big company ABRDN
- Impressive growth since 2012
- Recently signed up with NatWest to collaborate
- received awards for cheapest SIPP and UK stock brokers
- thanks to flat-fee subscription model, no minimum investmets, it provides predictable recurring revenue. Especially because people with more money will move over there once vanguard is no longer cheaper for them (which is at around 30k)
- Amazing trustpilot rating which means customers are satisfied
Growth Trajectory
- Growing rapidly in the UK
- Daily retail trades increased significantly from 8.7k to 21k
- Competitive pricing model witg flat fee
potential challenges
- integration with abrdn could impact company’s culture and ops
- Competitive market where HL and other fintech companies are doing similar thing
- Works in regulatory environment
- Due to nature of the product, in extremely volatile situations it might have an impact on business
About software
- Apps look good and have good reviews. Definitely better than Vanguard in that regard
About the role
Technical Skills
- TS/JS
- React/RN
- Next.js
- HTML/css
- Node
- REST APIs
- AWS
Soft Skills:
- Positive attitude
- Collaborative approach
- Proactive with ideas and suggestions
- Strong communication skills
- Cultural fit with a non-corp env
Why I want to join
- Stable company as they have a big company behind them, which means it will last for long and probably are resistant to turbulent times on a market
- I have experience in regulated environment and understand how to build software in this kind of environment
- Interesting product that I would personally want to use myself