Scaling a FinTech data team: from exec hires to hands-on delivery

The Challenge

When payments giant Dojo underwent a major rebrand from Paymentsense in 2020, they were fundamentally transforming how they operated. The decision to bring all back-office payment processing in-house meant handling customer acquisition and transaction volumes at an unprecedented scale.

For a company processing billions in payments annually, this transformation created an urgent talent challenge: The data function needed to evolve fast.

Dojo's leadership recognised that to deliver grade-A service and outpace competitors in the crowded payments market, they needed to completely reimagine their data capabilities. This meant building a sophisticated data organisation from the ground up, capable of:

• Driving real-time decision making across customer acquisition, risk management, and operational efficiency
• Scaling analytics infrastructure to handle exponential transaction growth
• Building predictive capabilities for fraud detection, customer lifetime value, and market expansion
• Creating data products that would differentiate Dojo in a competitive marketplace

The challenge was finding data professionals who could operate at Dojo's pace and scale.

The London data talent market was intensely competitive. Senior data leaders were commanding premium salaries and had multiple options. The competition included established tech giants, well-funded startups, and other high-growth fintech companies, all vying for the same talent pool.

Dojo's internal team faced several critical obstacles:

• Time pressure: Business transformation couldn't wait for lengthy hiring processes
• Quality standards: They needed senior professionals who could hit the ground running
• Specialist expertise: Requirements spanned everything from machine learning to business intelligence
• Cultural fit: New hires needed to thrive in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment
• Market knowledge gaps: Internal recruiters lacked deep connections in the data community

The Solution

After joining Dojo's preferred supplier list based on a recommendation following our successful work with Farfetch, Burns Sheehan quickly proved their value and became Dojo's exclusive data hiring partner, embedded as a strategic extension of the internal talent team:

Continuous Market Intelligence

• Weekly strategy calls with hiring managers and talent leads
• Regular salary benchmarking and market trend analysis
• Proactive identification of emerging talent before roles opened
• Quarterly talent planning sessions aligned with the business roadmap

Cultural Integration

• Regular meetings and catch-ups on site at Dojo's Paddington headquarters
• Shared Slack channels for real-time collaboration
• Deep understanding of Dojo's engineering culture and values
• Involvement in interview process optimisation

Talent Pipeline Development

• Built a "warm book" of pre-qualified candidates specifically for Dojo
• Maintained relationships with passive candidates over months or years
• Created talent maps of key competitors and adjacent industries
• Developed referral networks within the data community

The Results

Over a four-year partnership, Burns Sheehan has supported Dojo with permanent, contract and executive hiring needs.

This includes the successful appointment of two senior data leaders — a VP of Data and a Director of Data — to provide the strategic direction needed to drive transformation across the business.

We've also made 25+ successful placements across permanent and contract roles, including:

• Senior Data Scientists driving ML model development
• Analytics Engineers building data infrastructure
• Business Intelligence specialists creating executive dashboards
• Data Platform Engineers ensuring a scalable architecture
• Specialised analysts for digital marketing and customer insights

Enhanced Employer Brand

We also co-hosted an industry event on Analytics Engineering at Dojo’s offices, attracting over 100 data professionals. With speakers from Bumble, Lightdash, and DAZN, the event positioned Dojo as a thought leader in the space and strengthened its employer brand within the data community.