How a fast-growing Romanian bank built its in-house technology team: 30 roles in 12 months

The Client

Our client is one of the most consistently profitable banks in Romania — a specialist institution that has built its position by serving entrepreneurs, liberal professions and small and medium businesses better than larger, more generalist competitors. Its growth has been organic, disciplined and, increasingly, driven by technology.

That last point is what created this mandate. The bank made a strategic decision to build technology capability in-house rather than depend on external vendors for the systems that differentiate it: credit flows, process automation, core banking development and digital products.

The Challenge: Competing for Tech Talent Without a Tech Brand

This is one of the hardest positions in the Romanian technology market — and one that many companies outside the IT industry recognise immediately.

The candidates are being courted by everyone else. A senior developer, product owner or Scrum Master in Bucharest can choose between global product companies, international engineering hubs with thousands of staff, consultancies and start-ups. A Romanian bank is not the first employer on that list, and a job advertisement will not change that.

The roles required a specific and unusual combination. The mandate covered expert software developers on core banking systems, BPMS developers, business analysts, Scrum Masters and project managers, infrastructure administrators, and a Product Owner dedicated to credit flow and automation. These roles demand both technical capability and genuine banking domain understanding — credit processes, regulatory constraints, the mechanics of a lending business. Candidates who have both are rare; candidates who have both and are open to moving are rarer still.

A smaller organisation cannot absorb hiring mistakes. In a team of thirty, every individual is a meaningful share of total capability. There is no depth to hide a wrong hire behind.

Our Approach

Reframing the opportunity. Large technology organisations offer scale. A bank building its first in-house technology team offers something scale cannot: proximity to the business, visible impact, and ownership of systems that directly drive commercial results. For a certain kind of senior professional — one who has grown tired of being three layers removed from the customer — this is a genuinely stronger proposition. Our job was to identify those people and make the argument credibly.

Hybrid profiles, deliberately targeted. Rather than searching for pure technologists and hoping they would absorb the banking domain, we targeted the intersection: professionals from banking technology, fintech, core banking vendors and financial software providers who already understood credit, process automation and regulated environments.

Delivery roles treated as seriously as engineering roles. Business analysts, Scrum Masters, project managers and product owners determine whether an in-house technology team actually ships. We assessed them on delivery track record in real environments, not on certifications.

The Delivery

30 technology roles closed in 12 months, covering the full composition of an in-house technology function: development, business analysis, product ownership, agile delivery and infrastructure.

Domain-capable hires. The developers, analysts and product roles came with banking or financial systems understanding, which shortened ramp-up time considerably compared with hiring pure technologists into a regulated environment.

A complete team, not a collection of individuals. Engineering, product, delivery and infrastructure were staffed as a working structure — so the function could operate, not merely exist.

The Long View

The bank has continued its trajectory as one of the strongest performers in the Romanian market. Its most recent published results show assets of around 13.9 billion lei, a gross loan portfolio of 8.7 billion lei, deposits of 11.7 billion lei and a net profit of 324 million lei, with a return on equity above 20% and a non-performing loan ratio of just 2.24% — figures that place it among the most efficient and profitable banks in the country.

Technology has been central to that story. The bank was among the first in Romania to launch instant QR-code collection for merchants and has rolled out modern card payment technologies, while its leadership has publicly committed to continued investment in digitalisation, automation and the controlled use of data and artificial intelligence.

Those capabilities are built by people. Thirty of them joined through this mandate.

Key Takeaways

• Employer brand is beatable with a better argument. Companies outside the technology industry can win senior technologists — but only by offering something the large hubs cannot: ownership, proximity to the business and visible impact.
• Target the intersection, not the category. For banking technology, professionals who already understand credit and regulated processes ramp up faster and stay longer than pure technologists hired on skills alone.
• In small teams, selection quality is everything. With thirty people carrying an entire function, there is no margin for a wrong hire.
• Delivery roles are not secondary. Business analysts, product owners and Scrum Masters decide whether an in-house team ships. They deserve the same rigour as engineering hires.