Growing our team in a disciplined way as we build the future of Adyen

Dear all, 

By now, I’m sure all of you have read the news about the wider tech industry engaging in headcount reductions. I’m writing to you today to explain why we are consciously choosing not to engage in such exercises. With an ever-evolving payments landscape and our financial product suite only in its infancy, we have a long runway ahead. We are in investment mode, and growing our team with a similar number of new colleagues in 2023 as we did this year is essential to realizing our long-term ambitions. 

It’s business as usual to keep our eyes on the horizon – on where we want to be years from today. For our recruitment strategy, this means that we are not led by short-term trends such as the pandemic-related ecommerce or in-store volume fluctuations, and hire specifically to meet our long-term technical and commercial needs. Throughout all stages of Adyen, we have been efficient and disciplined regarding how many people are required to solve problems and grow our business. To scale our culture of speed and autonomy as we grow, we keep our talent standards high and only hire exceptional people that quickly gain traction. 

This has resulted in times wherein we grew the team at a slower pace than we would have liked. In today’s talent market, we are seizing the opportunity to build the team to the size required to capitalize on our opportunities. For some teams, that means adding colleagues to scale existing capabilities. For others, it’s about building from scratch as we are training new muscles. By 2024, our ongoing investment into the team will have brought us to our next maturity level. At that time we will cool our hiring pace and allow the high operating leverage inherent to our business model to further expand. 

Given what is happening in the world around us, we ask that you remain sensitive about the difficult realities facing many in our industry and beyond. Political, economic, and environmental crises are reaching far and wide. Now is the time to remain humble and focused as we pursue our long-term opportunity. 

We are in the fortunate position of being in a high-growth stage. Executing on our strategy at speed, and building the team that allows us to do so, will make the greatest impact as we lead in this space. 

Pieter