Robinhood has set out to double headcount on its engineering, compliance and regulatory teams in 2021. At the end of June, the online trading platform was only 30% of the way to meeting its engineering hiring target.
The California-based online brokerage has seen rapid growth before. In the first five years since it was founded in 2013, Robinhood grew slowly and from 2018 to 30 June 2021, before its IPO, its headcount went from 289 to 2,800.
The company’s new hires are mainly in technology with some in customer support. In the second quarter of 2021, technology and development spending accounted for Robinhood’s biggest expense with more than 30% of its cost.
We’ve been aggressively hiring technology-related headcount, however over time we count on to see this line merchandise lower as a proportion of income.
Robinhood‘s engineering jobs are all in the US, mostly based in Menlo Park, California, but the company has noted that some engineers work remotely. A New York team is also in the works, under Jean Bredeche, co-founder of quant trading platform Quantopian, which was acquired by Robinhood last summer. Bredeche is building a team of data scientists to work on Robinhood’s new Investing Insights product in the new New York City office. In April the company hired JPMorgan’s Irvin Shah as head of investor relations and capital markets.
Former staff at investment banks and hedge funds have also rushed to the engineering job openings at Robinhood. In May, Paul Schorfheide form hedge fund Two Sigma, joined as senior data engineer. Former technologist in Goldman Sachs’ investment research team Rush Ashford joined this month as a data science manager in Menlo Park. Former Goldman tech analyst Alex Dale was also recently hired as part of the New York data team.
Experienced writer and journalist, working in the global online trading sector, Steffy is the Editor of LeapRate. She has previous experience as a copywriter and has been with the company since January 2020. Steffy has a British and American Studies degree from St. Kliment Ochridski University in Sofia.
