If you’ve sent money through an app or deposited a check with your phone, you’ve used fintech.
Fintech, or financial technology, is a vast ecosystem of services and solutions, including payment systems, lending platforms, and cryptocurrencies, that is revolutionizing the way businesses operate and creating promising new career paths.
Behind these innovations are fintech engineers who design, build, and maintain the software that powers many modern financial products. Though the role can require specialized education, it offers creative opportunities across finance and tech industries.
It’s also in high demand. The World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Report 2025” projected fintech engineers to be the second fastest-growing job over the next five years.
Jimmie Lenz, the executive director of Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering’s Master of Engineering in fintech program, has nearly thirty years of experience in the financial services industry and has witnessed firsthand the increasing demand for expertise in the field.
“The driver behind everything new in finance over the past 30 years has been innovation,” Lenz told Business Insider. He added that technological advances continually spur change in the financial world, keeping the role of a fintech engineer both compelling and essential.
Stella Zhang, the engineering manager for applied AI and growth at Plaid, a fintech company that connects consumer bank accounts to financial apps, likes that her work is helping make people’s financial lives frictionless and intuitive.
“This field rewards those who can zoom out to see the big picture while zooming in to perfect the details,” Zhang said. “If that kind of multi-scale thinking excites you, you’ll thrive in fintech.”
Working at the cutting edge of finance
Lenz said there was immediate demand when Duke’s Master of Engineering in Fintech program launched in 2020, and interest has stayed consistent. “The very first year, we probably had eight or 10 applications for every one seat,” he said.
Fintech engineers are often proficient in various programming languages, blockchain technologies, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Those interested in specializing in fintech can acquire relevant skills through various routes, including intensive, short-term boot camps and specialized degree programs.
While undergraduate majors vary, Lenz said he sees many applicants with backgrounds in mathematics, finance, economics, and computer science. He said the opportunity to be in a rapidly evolving field is driving interest in fintech engineering.
“Students definitely see their experience as getting to be at the very front wave of things,” Lenz said.
He said a talented fintech engineer is able to apply their programming and software engineering skills in a financial context, so it’s important that his students leave with both technical and contextual information.
Zhang found her way to Plaid after “an unconventional journey through finance and tech.” She studied quantitative finance at Princeton University and researched computer science and AI at Stanford University. She went on to work at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, Citadel, a hedge fund, and Ironclad, a software company. Zhang said she was drawn to Plaid because it connected all the dots in her career.
“At Plaid, I can use my understanding of financial systems to build AI that serves developers and, ultimately, hundreds of millions of end-users,” Zhang said. “Working on applied AI in fintech where accuracy, reliability, and security are paramount provides exactly the level of challenge and responsibility that energizes me every day.”
Lenz said his students have gone on to work in large technology companies, banks, entrepreneurial start-ups, and investment and brokerage firms. Glassdoor’s salary estimate for fintech engineers ranges from $109,000 to $170,000 a year, but Lenz said that based on conversations with his former students, the range can sometimes stretch to $200,000.
Curiosity is key to a fintech career
Kathleen DeRose, the academic director of the Master of Science in Fintech program at New York University, said new advancements like artificial intelligence keep fintech evolving and exciting.
The job prospects for fintech engineers “reflect the tech transformations underway,” she said. The surge of multibillion-dollar companies in the fintech space also “suggests the prospects are really good,” said DeRose.
When DeRose speaks with hiring managers and recruiters, she’s increasingly hearing a desired characteristic that goes beyond technical skills: curiosity.
“You need to have the technical chops, but the ability to learn quickly and have the curiosity to do so is the adaptive power that’s wanted,” she said.
Zhang recommended choosing to work with companies “that give you space to experiment and fail safely.” Breakthrough innovations rarely come from prescribed roadmaps, and the best ideas can come from “what if” conversations over coffee, she said.
“Most importantly, remember that fintech engineering is about people, not just systems,” Zhang said. “Yes, you need to understand distributed systems and API design, but you also need empathy for the small-business owner trying to make payroll or the recent graduate navigating student loans.”
“The best solutions come from engineers who never forget there’s a human on the other end of every product experience,” she added.
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