Fintech · Payments · AI · Technology
Specialist talent for fintech, payments & AI.
We recruit the people who build, operate and scale modern financial infrastructure — payment engineers, MLROs, AI specialists and the executives who lead them.
Hiring a Head of Payments shouldn't require explaining acquiring to your recruiter.
Generic sourcing is being commoditised. What is not commoditised is knowing which twenty people in a market have actually run settlement at scale, why an issuing background does not transfer to acquiring, or that a regulatory approval in one jurisdiction does not carry to another.
That is the work. We recruit only into fintech, payments, AI and the technology around them, so the screening conversation starts where a generalist's ends.
How we workWhat we recruit for
Six specialisms, screened by people who understand them
Every vertical below lists the domain signals we actually screen against — so you can judge whether we know the market before you speak to us.
Payments
Engineers and leaders who have actually run money movement — acquiring, issuing, settlement, reconciliation and scheme integration.
Fintech
Talent for neobanks, lending, remittance, wealthtech, regtech and the infrastructure underneath them.
Engineering
Backend, platform, cloud, SRE and security engineers who understand correctness, auditability and uptime in a financial context.
AI & Data
AI, ML and data talent for companies putting models into production — including fraud, risk and financial decisioning.
Risk & Compliance
MLROs, compliance leadership and financial crime specialists — including regulator-approved and controlled-function appointments.
Product & Commercial
Product managers, partnerships and revenue leaders who can sell and build regulated financial products.
Why Hirra
Domain knowledge, then speed
We know the roles
Our consultants can hold a technical conversation about ledgers, settlement, transaction monitoring or model evaluation. Candidates notice, and it changes who replies.
Curated, not volume
A short shortlist with written reasoning on each candidate — including where they do not fit. If the realistic market is nine people, we will tell you it is nine people.
Direct search, not job ads
The people you want are employed and not applying. We map the teams where the experience exists and approach them directly.
Global markets
Coverage across the UAE and GCC, UK and Europe, and Singapore and Southeast Asia — including relocation and work-authorisation reality, planned up front.
Human judgement, AI leverage
We use AI to search and structure the market faster. Every candidate you see has been assessed by a person who can defend the recommendation.
Honest about fit
If we are not the right people for a brief, we say so at the first call rather than take the mandate and waste a quarter.
Insights
Hiring intelligence for fintech and payments teams
Hiring guide
Hiring AI engineers in fintech
Why the AI hire that works in fintech is rarely the strongest modeller, how to tell ML engineers from applied AI engineers, and what explainability requirements do to your candidate pool.
Hiring guide
How to hire a payments engineer
What separates a payments engineer from a strong backend engineer, the questions that actually reveal it, and the hiring mistakes that cost teams a quarter.
Hiring guide
How to hire an MLRO
Why MLRO hiring sits on the critical path to launch, why regulatory approval is not portable between jurisdictions, and how to screen for judgement rather than framework recall.
Hiring a role that generalist recruiters keep getting wrong?
Send us the brief. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right people for it, what the market looks like, and what it will take to hire.
For candidates
Join Hirra's talent network
Tell us what you do and what you would move for. When we work a role that genuinely matches, you hear from a person who understands the job — not an automated blast.
- Free for candidates, always. Employers pay our fees.
- We only approach you about roles that actually match your criteria.
- Your details are never shared with an employer without your consent.
- Joining the network is not a job application and does not guarantee a role.