Case study
Pennylane – Building a remote-first, distributed tech team
Pennylane are a Paris based Fintech providing a financial OS to small businesses, entrepreneurs and start-ups whilst driving the digital revolution of the accountancy industry. A single source of truth for financial data, used on one side by entrepreneurs to run their business (invoicing and getting paid, paying suppliers and expense management, piloting cash and profitability) and on the other side by their accountant for bookkeeping and fiscal declarations.
Having raised a large Series A, they needed to rapidly scale their tech team by over 70. Due to our success with them as an Agency, and because we therefore knew their business well, they used our Embedded Talent Solution to deliver on their growth ambitions
Length of engagement
9 Months
Size of company
50 – 250 Staff
Number of hires
14+
Money saved vs agency
€95,000+
Countried sourced from
12+
NPS Score
97.5%
The challenge
Pennylane‘s internal team was small when we started and with little experience of hiring tech talent outside of France. They needed someone a partner who could manage the full end-end recruitment cycle, proactively & independently work with stakeholders to get results, manage third party supplier and agencies, and have the knowledge to rapidly build a remote tech team across Europe and North Africa.
As the team evolved, we were also asked to provide mentorship and training to their new internal talent hires.
The roles were across Backend (Ruby), Fullstack (Ruby/React), Frontend (React), Team Leads and Engineering Managers.
Ruby
Fullstack Ruby
Frontend
Team Leading
The solution:
Our embedded consultant took ownership for all international (Europe and N. Africa) tech hiring. This meant:
- Direct sourcing of candidates from across Europe, North Africa and Asia
- Managing all direct applications from all candidates based outside of France
- Managing agency relationships
- Owning the full end-end recruitment process, from conducting initial interviews, managing the interview process, to offer stage
The result:
Due to the ongoing success of our delivery, the contract has been extended twice to continue building candidate pipelines whilst providing training and mentorship to their new internal recruitment team.
- Provided 14 hires across all tech functions, based in 12 different countries
- Advised on reduced dependence on agency supplies, and managed down from 8 agencies to 1 key supplier
- Helped with restructuring their interview process, including a re-write of the technical assessment stages to better reflect the expectations of tech candidates
- Worked with C-suite to establish salary bandings that reflected the needs of international candidates
- Advised on alternative payroll options for international candidates which resulted in the introduction of a new payroll solution
“Venture Up has provided outstanding support to help ramp up our internal TA capabilities and grow our Tech teams all across Europe. Venture Up proved able to deliver on targets while offering a best-in-class candidate experience and mentoring the internal recruitment team.
They helped us in setting up standards in terms of sourcing, stakeholder management and process governance. Last, they demonstrated strong adjustment skills to our context, perfectly switching from team member to advisor depending on the situation and going the extra mile when needed. I would definitely recommend them!”
– Head of Recruitment, Pennylane
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We’ve worked with dozens of clients on a range of requirements, delivering bespoke hiring solutions across agency (permanent and contract), retained and RPO. Get in touch with us to discuss your needs, and how we can mould our services to meet your hiring objectives