14 senior engineers hired in 41 days for a Korean FinTech expanding to Southeast Asia

Industry

Fintech

Service

Reco7

Client Location

Korea

41 working days — vs. 75–90 market average

100% placement rate — 14 of 14 roles filled, first wave

85.7% retention at 12 months — 12 of 14 engineers still on team

~38% hiring cost savings — vs. client’s own-hire estimate

1. Background

A Korean FinTech company — Series B, around 420 employees globally — was entering Southeast Asia and chose Hanoi as the location for its new engineering center. The city offered competitive talent costs and a strong Java/Kotlin developer pool, making it a natural fit for building their SEA product team from the ground up.

Before reaching out to Reco, the company had spent three months attempting to recruit independently via LinkedIn and online job boards. The effort stalled at the senior and tech lead level, where candidates with the right combination of FinTech experience, English proficiency, and willingness to work Seoul hours (UTC+9) were difficult to source through general channels.

“We needed a partner who actually understands the Vietnamese tech market — not just a CV forwarder. Reco delivered 14 qualified engineers in 41 days. That’s not a small thing when you have a product deadline.”
— Head of People, FinTech client (Seoul)

2. The challenge

At the point of engagement, the client had zero engineers in Vietnam. Their global technical team of 62 people was based entirely in Seoul. The ask: fill 14 positions in 6–8 weeks to hit the Q3 roadmap kick-off.

Company snapshot

Stage	Series B
Global headcount	420
Seoul office (HQ)	180 people
Singapore office	25 people
Vietnam at start	0 engineers

Seoul and Singapore are the two primary offices referenced in this engagement. Global headcount of 420 includes additional regional staff.

Requirements

Stack	Java / Spring Boot
Experience	5–8 years
Domain	Financial systems
Language	English (reading)
Work hours	Seoul time (UTC+9)

3. Roles filled

Senior Backend Engineer — Java / Spring Boot
Senior Backend Engineer — Kotlin / Microservices
Tech Lead — Java ecosystem
Senior DevOps / SRE
Engineering Manager
Senior QA Engineer

Team structure: 1 Engineering Manager → 2 Tech Leads → 5 Backend Senior (Java) + 3 Backend Senior (Kotlin) + 2 DevOps/SRE + 1 QA Senior

4. Service delivered

Reco7 — Full-scope headhunt

Reco handled the entire search-to-hire cycle: sourcing, technical screening, interview coordination, offer negotiation (benchmarked to Vietnam market rates to avoid overpaying), and onboarding support.

The interview loop ran three rounds: Reco’s own technical screen, a client technical interview, and a final session with the client’s CTO. Average time from shortlist to signed offer: 8 working days.

Process: Sourcing & outreach → Reco technical screen → Client interview → CTO final → Offer & negotiation → Onboarding support

5. Outcomes

Metric	Result	Context
Time to fill all 14 roles	41 working days	Market benchmark: 75–90 days
Placement rate	14 / 14 (100%)	All roles in the first wave
Retention at 12 months	85.7%	12 of 14 engineers still active
Hiring cost vs. self-hire estimate	~38% lower	Inclusive of Reco service fee

6. Project context

FinTech / Digital Banking
Korea × Southeast Asia
Stack: Kotlin + Kafka + AWS
Real-time payment systems
Core banking integration
Greenfield SEA codebase

The Vietnam team was set up to own the entire SEA product — a greenfield core banking module, entirely separate from the Korean codebase. The team’s mandate was to bring this to production within 18 months. The Reco engagement was the starting point; the client went on to grow the Vietnam office to 35 engineers over the following year.