3 Years of Evotym: The Story Behind a Fintech Recruitment Agency

This year, Evotym celebrates 3 years in fintech recruitment.

A lot has happened in that time: we changed, the market changed, there were mistakes and there were real wins. We went from 2 people figuring out the basics to a team of 20 building fintech teams across European markets.

In honour of our 3rd birthday, we want to tell the story honestly – where it all began, how we got here, and what 3 years in fintech recruitment actually taught us.

How It Started

Before founding Evotym, our CEO & Founder Anastasia Zencika spent 10 years at a fintech company – joining when the team was 7 people and staying as it grew into a large corporation with offices across Europe and Asia. Over time, her role shifted from brand and communications toward culture and people strategy.

After a decade, Anastasia reached a point where she knew it was time to build something of her own. Because every time she read about someone launching a company, something stirred in her. She wanted to prove she could do it too.

Anastasia left her corporate job, tested a few business ideas that didn't go anywhere. But sometimes the right thing finds you when you're least expecting it. At ESMT Berlin, where she was completing an MBA, she met Artem Karpenko (now Evotym's Strategy Moderator) – the right person at the right moment. The idea that would become Evotym started to take shape.

Artem had spent years in recruitment, Anastasia had a decade in fintech. Oddly enough, neither of them was especially eager to return to their own field, but together, they realised that the combination of what each of them knew was exactly what a fintech recruitment agency needed.

"There's a kind of magic that happens when 2 people who are completely different share the same belief," Anastasia says. "Evotym was born in that space."

The name Evotym came out of one of their classes at ESMT. While Artem was working through a proper shortlist – "EvoTeam" for the evolution of your team, "ExoTeam" for an extension of it, since they were initially considering an outstaffing model – Anastasia opened a domain search on her laptop and bought one.

A typo in "team," or a search suggestion, nobody quite remembers. By the time Artem sent his next option, the domain was already purchased. The typo stayed and became the most distinctive thing about the name. Artem has described it as the perfect summary of how their partnership works: one person thinking it through, the other already making it happen.

Year One

"That first year was pure adrenaline," Anastasia recalls. "We were testing everything, building processes from scratch, staying up late dreaming about what this company could become."

There were early wins. The first real client arrived remarkably quickly, Artem credits that to Anastasia's network and her instinct for building relationships. But there were also stretches of silence, weeks when nothing seemed to work, and moments when it was genuinely unclear what the next step should be.

And there were mistakes. For example, early on, Evotym had a client looking for a developer. Both Anastasia and Artem sat in on the candidate interview and both felt confident presenting him. The client's response was short: this isn't a developer, this is a system administrator.

"I was very embarrassed," Artem says. "But yes. That happened."

That moment shaped how Evotym works today. Before going to the market, the team now goes deep into the client's business first – the actual problem the hire is meant to solve, the team dynamics, what a good outcome looks like in that specific context.

Evotym started in 2020 as a general recruitment agency. The plan was to say yes to everything and keep all doors open.

What happened instead was that the clients who came back, the roles where results came through, the conversations that turned into lasting partnerships – they were all in fintech. At some point, the direction became clear: we should focus on the industry we actually knew, going deep on fintech rather than wide on everything and in 2023, we made it official.

Narrowing down felt risky at the time. Looking back, that decision was the foundation everything else was built on.

Most agencies can read a job description and search for keywords. Evotym can walk into a client conversation and already understand the regulatory context, the team dynamics, the likely hiring mistakes – because the people behind it had lived through those exact situations themselves.

Evotym's First Hire

The agency was growing. Clients were coming in through referrals, the work was expanding, and at a certain point 2 people simply weren't enough to keep up with it. For Artem, hiring the first team member was the moment Evotym started feeling like something real.

Yuliya Yauseyevich, now Evotym's Team Lead of Recruitment, was the agency's first hire.

She applied thinking Evotym was a well-known, established company – and found out it was an early-stage startup after she joined the first call. According to Yuliya, the interview didn't feel formal at all. Artem noticed her headphones, the conversation was easy, and she left knowing she wanted to work with these people.

The fact that the company was small didn't change that. She could already see from the beginning how much Anastasia cared about what she was building – and that kind of drive is hard to ignore.

Her first week brought a different kind of surprise: the number of tools and systems already in place for a company that size.

"That's not typical at this stage," Yuliya says. "I understood immediately – this is serious."

The work at the start was classic recruitment: sourcing, screening, placing candidates. What made it different was the ownership – full responsibility for outcomes, no decisions made above her head.

3 years on, that role looks much more like strategic advisory:

• Understanding what a client actually needs, not just what's in the brief
• Helping form the right brief in the first place
• Advising on market conditions, salary ranges, and realistic timelines
• Connecting what the market can offer to the actual business logic of each hire
• Knowing the industry well enough to understand what each role actually requires: its responsibilities, its dynamics, the kind of person who thrives in it

"Now I'm the person who connects the market, the product, and the business logic," Yuliya says. "Finding candidates is part of it. Understanding why the market isn't giving you what you need – that's the real work."

Watching the team grow from a handful of people to nearly 20 has been one of the most meaningful parts of the journey for her – and one she feels personally connected to.

"I selected the best people for us," she says. "I feel completely involved in that."

A Market in Motion

Over 3 years, not only Evotym changed – the fintech hiring market changed significantly alongside it.

In 2023, the market was candidate-driven. Companies were scaling fast and willing to make compromises – a candidate with less experience but clear potential was genuinely considered, hard skills were the main criteria, and speed of hire came first.

Today, the picture looks different. The candidate profile has matured:

• Adaptability and ownership are at the top of almost every brief
• Companies want people who can deliver results quickly in lean teams
• Proficiency with AI tools is now a baseline expectation
• Soft skills and cultural fit carry significantly more weight than 3 years ago

"The technical background alone isn't enough anymore," Yuliya says. "Companies want someone who works independently, adapts fast, and moves things forward from day one."

Clients have shifted too. Decision timelines are longer, budgets are reviewed more carefully, and every new hire needs a clear case for its value. The bar for what a recruitment partner should deliver has moved: now companies are looking for strategic thinking, not just passive sourcing.

Fintech itself has matured in parallel. 3 years ago, the focus was on growth and product launches. Today, efficiency, automation, and compliance have replaced growth-at-all-costs. AI integration is now standard across development, analytics, support, and operations.

The hardest roles to fill have moved accordingly.

"One good compliance specialist is sometimes worth more than a developer," Yuliya says. "And finding one is about as likely as winning the lottery."

As regulatory requirements across EU fintech and crypto grow more complex, demand for compliance, risk, and licensing professionals keeps rising, and the talent pool hasn't kept pace.

What Our Clients and Candidates Say

The best proof of any company's work isn't what it says about itself.

Today, Evotym works with companies across 10+ countries, has 82 satisfied clients, and connects businesses with a global network of 40,000+ candidates worldwide. These numbers reflect long-term partnerships, not one-off placements.

What set us apart:

• Deep industry knowledge. Our team combines recruitment expertise with backgrounds in fintech, psychology, and coaching – looking at skills, cultural fit, and long-term alignment together, not separately.
• Trusted networks. We move fast without compromising quality, drawing on real relationships built over years in the industry, not just database searches.
• Quality over volume. We present only candidates we genuinely believe in, and we work with companies where we can make a real difference.
• Structure and clarity. Processes supported by automation and market mapping mean consistent delivery with 0 chaos.

Over 3 years, Evotym has earned a 4.8 rating on Trustpilot. Here's what some of the people we've worked with had to say about their experience.

"I had a very good experience with Evotym. Communication was clear and efficient. The outcome was positive for me and for the company where I applied." – Paulius V.

Others came looking for speed:

“I had a great experience with Evotym and enjoyed the hiring process. It took about a month to match me with a company that was the right fit for me.” – Tony.

But what candidates notice most is professionalism:

“I had a wonderful experience working with Anna, who demonstrated an excellent understanding of the fintech industry, as well as the roles and responsibilities involved. She was always responsive, professional, and ready to jump on a call whenever needed.” – Anastasija R.

The companies that came to us with a hiring challenge:

"Evotym helped us close 2 fintech positions in 3 weeks. The quality and speed of the search was outstanding – the team found people with strong hard skills who turned out to be a perfect cultural fit for our team." – Anna, HR at Spayz.io

A result like this comes from understanding the client's business before going to the market, and knowing what "the right fit" actually means for that specific team.

"In just 2 weeks, they helped us hire 2 developers and a designer. The whole process was clear and easy, making it smooth for us." – Olga, Ecommpay

We wouldn't be here without every client who trusted us with a hard search and every candidate who believed we'd find them something worth moving for. Thank you so much!

What's Next

At our last strategy session, Artem outlined what comes next: finding people for our team who are genuinely outstanding at what they do – ones whose energy and way of working pulls the whole team forward. That's the milestone we've set for ourselves.

On the market side, Western Europe is the next step. As Anastasia sees it, the growing regulatory complexity across EU fintech and crypto plays directly into what Evotym does best: placing compliance, risk, and licensing professionals that most generalist agencies consistently struggle to find.

"The roles I'm most looking forward to," Anastasia says, "are the ones nobody else has been able to fill – the ones where a client has been searching for months. That's where this work makes the most sense."

For Artem, what drives him forward is watching Anastasia grow into the leader she's becoming. That says a lot about the kind of company Evotym is.

3 Years Down, More to Come

3 years ago, one decision changed everything: fintech, and only fintech. Today there are 20 of us, hundreds of placements, and a track record we're proud of. None of it exists without the people who are part of it – the ones who have been here from the start, the ones who joined along the way, the clients who trust us, and the candidates who take a chance on what we find for them.

Thank you all. Genuinely.

But before we get back to work, here’s something we want to say to the team.

Anastasia Zencika, CEO & Founder: Support each other through the hard moments as much as the good ones. Be honest about what's working and what isn't, and be brave enough to change it. Stay curious about where fintech is heading and what our place in it can be. Keep asking: what else can we do better, smarter, more creatively? We've grown a lot together. The most exciting part of that story is still being written.

Artem Karpenko, Strategy Moderator: Routine work is a huge part of recruitment, and mentally, it's very hard to break out of it. So my genuine wish is this: don't get stuck in it. Ask yourself honestly: am I doing something that actually matters? Look at what you're doing and discard what isn't. And enjoy every day of it – however hard it gets. The path is worth it.

Yuliya Yauseyevich, Team Lead Recruitment: Don't lose your sense of humor – especially after the fifth quick sync of the day. And remember: we're actually very good at what we do.

Happy birthday, Evotym!

If you've worked with us, whether as a client or as a candidate, and want to mark the occasion, the best gift you can give us is a review on Trustpilot. It helps more good people find us and means more to us than you might think.

And if you want to stay close to what we're building – follow us on LinkedIn. We share hiring insights, market updates, open roles, and a look behind the scenes at how a boutique fintech recruitment agency actually operates.