Ramiro Gonzalez Forcada is CEO & Cofounder at The Flock.
In fintech, speed is survival. Yet many small and medium businesses (SMBs) still approach hiring as if they were building factories, not financial innovation engines. Legacy staffing models, designed for scale economies, are misaligned with the demands of digital finance.
The future is clear: Talent must be treated as infrastructure—scalable, flexible and modular. Static teams will not survive the turbulence ahead. Dynamic team structures must become an operational norm, not an experiment.
The Accelerating Skills Gap
According to the World Economic Forum, 39% of current skills are expected to change or become obsolete by 2030. At the same time, the global economy is expected to generate 170 million new jobs by 2030, driven by the adoption of AI and digital transformation. Fintech SMBs that fail to rethink their workforce strategy now risk becoming irrelevant in markets that demand constant reinvention.
Technical skills, particularly in the field of AI, are in high demand. The OECD reports that demand for AI-related roles grew 33% between 2019 and 2022 across advanced economies. In fintech, where AI underpins fraud detection, credit scoring, risk management and customer service, the gap between available skills and business needs is widening fast. Organizations that cannot rapidly integrate new capabilities into their teams will find themselves sidelined by faster, nimbler competitors.
Access to talent is no longer restricted by geography. According to the World Bank, in high-income countries, 90% of the population is connected to the internet. Global connectivity eliminates excuses for failing to source the best talent wherever it may exist. Fintech SMBs must build distributed teams capable of operating asynchronously across time zones, leveraging diverse expertise without waiting for local availability.
The IMF highlights that 5.4% of university-educated workers are internationally mobile, compared to just 1.8% of those with only secondary education. This mobile talent pool provides a unique opportunity for fintechs to design “borderless teams” optimized for technical excellence rather than geographic convenience.
The race for talent is not only happening in Silicon Valley or New York—it’s a continental challenge that defines who will survive and who will fade.
How Elastic Team Models Deliver Speed
Elasticity delivers measurable results. According to a study by Scoop and Boston Consulting Group, companies with flexible or remote-first policies saw 21% higher revenue growth compared to those with strict office requirements. Yet, scalability without structure is chaos. Elasticity must be engineered.
Building a talent infrastructure doesn’t mean relying on freelancers alone or piecing together ad hoc resources. It requires designing modular, fully integrated teams that can expand or contract without compromising security, compliance, product velocity or customer trust. This demands new operating models, new leadership mindsets and a commitment to seeing people as strategic assets—not cost centers.
In this new era, CTOs and CEOs must become architects of human infrastructure. Talent must be sourced, onboarded and managed with the same rigor as any mission-critical system. Workforce design becomes a technical discipline.
The economics support this: According to the World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Report 2025,” companies that adopt flexible talent strategies are more resilient and better able to navigate periods of economic uncertainty and industry transformation.
The stakes are high. Fintech SMBs operate under the constant threat of disruption, new regulations and sudden shifts in capital availability. Those with rigid, slow-moving teams will find themselves paralyzed in moments that demand speed.
Talent-as-infrastructure is not a metaphor. It is the only viable foundation for fintech companies seeking resilience, speed and scalability in an increasingly complex digital economy.
The next infrastructure race won’t be fought on hardware. It won’t be about who builds the largest data center or the sleekest app. It will be fought—and won—on human architecture: how quickly, intelligently and resiliently you can build and rebuild your teams to meet the moment.
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