Why Most Engineers Fail Their First 6 Months in Fintech

You joined a fintech and you think everything is too slow.

You think checklists are pointless, you think that all meetings are a waste and that the release process is overkill.
Maybe you’re missing something.

Aviation has pre flight checklists not because pilots are stupid, but because the consequences of skipping one are catastrophic.
Every item in the checklist was put there after a tragedy, usually.

Fintech is the same. With less tragic consequences hopefully.

Multiple environment, checklists, approvals.
A new engineer from a startup or from defi thinks “This is so slow, I can deploy this in 5 minutes”.

Yes, he might.
But he might also create an incident which will cost the company hundreds of thousands of euros each day in fines.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

While it is true that some meetings could have been email, there are some that will give you the edge over everyone.

API definition discussions, tech architecture meetings, hands on sessions.
This is where you absorb domain knowledge that no documentation can.

Everyone can code nowadays, but having domain knowledge (both business and technical) is where the edge lies

You can’t ping on slack everyone like it’s a startup.
Channels of communication exists because in a regulated environment, information flow matters.
And I’m not talking only about efficiency, but also accountability.

In Fintech a review is not just about code quality.
It’s about consistency, domain correctness and making sure a new engineer doesn’t introduce something that breaks regulatory assumption

New tech is cool.
Stable tech is cooler.

The engineers who fail in their first 6 months are the ones who fight these things.
The engineers who succeed are the one who ask “why does this exist?” instead of complaining.