- Plaid runs the data pipes connecting bank accounts to consumer apps.
- Paul Williamson heads Plaid’s revenue team, which now numbers roughly 200.
- Plaid looks for employees whose experience and interests align with its broad set of customers.
For Plaid, nabbing the tech giants Google and Microsoft as clients was emblematic of the financial data company’s growing profile. The fintech already connects some of the nation’s
largest banks
, corporations, and startups — including well-known names like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Chime.
It’s that diverse set of customers that shapes the hiring approach of Paul Williamson, Plaid’s head of revenue, who oversees a group of roughly 200 employees.
Founded in 2013, Plaid runs the data pipes that connect bank accounts to financial apps and services, sharing customers’ financial data between the two sides. The fintech was last valued at $13.4 billion when it raised a $425 million Series D round in April.
Plaid’s revenue division is roughly segmented into three groups. One works with the fintech’s early-stage startup clients. Another is designed to service enterprise companies, and the third handles Plaid’s large tech clients.
“We want people on the team who can speak the language of that client,” Williamson told Insider.
“It’s not one size, one type of person, fits all. We’ve got to look for distinct and unique skills that essentially support the business across those different segments as well,” he added.
One key aspect of working on the revenue team is that employees have a broad, universal view of Plaid’s customer base, and see the fintech’s clients grow and develop over time.
The revenue team is responsible for every stage of a Plaid client’s lifecycle, from new customer sales and onboarding to client management and technical support — “essentially all of the ways that a customer would evaluate and then ultimately utilize Plaid,” said Williamson.
Current open positions on the revenue team include everything from sales jobs to account and technical manager, solution engineering, and implementation positions.
Because of the broad base of customers that revenue team members support at Plaid, Williamson said it’s often a jumping-off point for other roles within the company, including within product and marketing.
Plaid has grown rapidly since Williamson joined in January 2017. The startup has gone from 50 employees five years ago to roughly 1,000 now.
The revenue division has seen growth that mirrors that of the rest of the company, Williamson said, and it’s not alone. After a deal to sell to Visa fell through earlier this year, Plaid said it’s looking to double its tech staff. And this April, Insider reported that Plaid, whose headcount then was about 700, planned to grow that number by 50% in 2021.
Principles at Plaid
When considering new hires for sales and revenue roles, Williamson said Plaid uses a set of seven company-wide principles: impact; grow, together; make it better; consumer outcomes, via customer love; invent tomorrow; embrace openness and positivity; think rigorously; act with urgency.
The revenue team, specifically, looks for three qualities during the interview process, according to Williamson: Whether a candidate is a thought leader, is thorough in their work and leaves no stone unturned, and works to win as a team.
Candidates for the revenue team at Plaid typically go through multiple stages of interviews. Applicants spend time working on a customer case study, Williamson said, and meet with revenue team members and leadership to get a sense of the fintech’s culture and learn what it’s like to work at Plaid.
Plaid
The revenue team is also looking to bring on new employees who will work on partnerships with other companies, given that it’s “a growing part of our business as more companies choose to bring products to market in concert with Plaid,” Williamson added.
The fintech is open to hiring revenue team members whose backgrounds don’t always align with traditional fintech experience, especially since Plaid’s customer base is continuously evolving to serve a new set of clients that don’t always work within financial services.
“Only ever hiring from fintech, I don’t think that would be a good thing for Plaid, but I also just don’t think it’s a good thing for the industry overall,” Williamson said.
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