Your New York fintech recruitment specialists
Nexus IT Group recruits fintech professionals for New York employers: payment systems and financial software engineers, quantitative developers, fraud and compliance engineers, data and platform engineers along with the CTOs and heads of engineering who run regulated products. We place contract, contract-to-hire and permanent staff across the sectors that make New York the largest fintech market in the country, from the banks and quant firms in Midtown and Hudson Yards to the scale-ups in Flatiron and SoHo and the crypto companies in Flatiron and Midtown.
Our New York candidate network has been built over years of searches for banks, asset managers, payment companies and venture-backed fintechs across the metro. Every search runs outbound to passive engineers, with three calls before you see anyone and a shortlist within 4 days, the same fintech recruiting process we run for clients nationwide. Candidates are screened on the payment, trading or lending systems they have actually shipped, so the first interview is about fit rather than verification.
Companies that staff their fintech roles with Nexus IT Group
Nexus IT Group will quickly staff your open New York fintech roles with high-quality committed candidates
81%
of our successful candidates are submitted within one week
92%
of our candidates will accept your offer
96%
of our candidates are employed with your firm after 12 months
Where New York hires fintech talent
Five sectors carry most of the demand, and New York fintechs alone raised $10.5 billion across 460 venture deals in 2025, more than any other US market.
Banks and asset managers
The largest technology organisations in the city, from core banking and payments at the banks to the Aladdin platform at BlackRock and the research infrastructure at the quant firms.
- JPMorgan Chase
- Goldman Sachs
- Morgan Stanley
- Citi
- BlackRock
- Two Sigma
- Jane Street
Fintech scale-ups
Venture-backed payments, lending and wealth platforms headquartered here or running their largest engineering office here, with Stripe alone at around 1,000 New York staff.
- Ramp
- Stripe
- Plaid
- Betterment
- Chime
- Affirm
- Payoneer
Market data and infrastructure
Terminal, post-trade, exchange and electronic trading platforms whose engineering teams are the bulk of the company.
- Bloomberg
- Broadridge
- Nasdaq
- Tradeweb
- MarketAxess
Crypto and digital assets
Exchanges, stablecoin issuers and custody infrastructure headquartered in the city under the BitLicense regime, with Coinbase building a 1,000-person hub at One Madison.
- Coinbase
- Gemini
- Paxos
- Fireblocks
Insurtech
Cloud-native carriers and embedded insurance platforms headquartered in Manhattan, all under NYDFS supervision.
- Lemonade
- Oscar Health
- Cover Genius
What fintech roles pay in New York
| Role | Low | Median | High | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantitative Researcher (total compensation) | $187,500 | $250,000 | $350,000 | Levels.fyi, Sept 2026 |
| Quantitative Developer (total compensation) | $150,000 | $210,000 | $325,000 | Levels.fyi, Sept 2026 |
| Quantitative Analyst (base, from job postings) | $93,500 | $170,000 | $308,800 | Indeed, Sept 2026 |
| Quantitative Trader (base) | $134,200 | $170,000 | $212,900 | Talent.com, 2026 |
| Financial Risk Specialist (all industries) | $108,200 | $139,700 | $179,000 | BLS OEWS, May 2025 |
| Compliance Analyst | $108,900 | $137,900 | $156,000 | Robert Half 2026 Salary Guide |
| AI/ML Engineer | $182,900 | $233,100 | $263,800 | Robert Half 2026 Salary Guide |
Figures are for the New York metro in 2026. The Levels.fyi rows are self-reported total compensation including bonus and equity, shown as the 25th percentile, median and 75th percentile, and they are dominated by the trading firms; the Indeed row is base pay from New York job postings over 36 months, shown as the low, average and high of the range; the Talent.com row is base pay shown as entry level, median and top; the BLS row covers every financial risk specialist in the metro across all industries, shown as the 25th percentile, median and 75th percentile; the Robert Half rows are the 2026 Salary Guide starting salary bands by experience level. Treat these as ranges, not a benchmark to offer against.
What shapes a New York fintech search right now
NYDFS keeps raising the cybersecurity bar
The NYDFS cybersecurity amendments requiring multi-factor authentication for every login and a maintained asset inventory took effect in November 2025, and the first certification against them was filed in April 2026. Since then the Department has issued letters on the cyber risks of frontier AI models in May 2026 and detailed risk assessment guidance in September 2026, and it fined Delta Dental $2.25 million and a money transmitter $250,000 for weak programmes. Banks, insurers and licensed fintechs are all covered, which keeps security, platform and compliance engineering roles open through the next certification in April 2027.
Stablecoin rules land in January
The federal GENIUS Act takes effect on 18 January 2027 and NYDFS proposed a matching stablecoin regulation in June 2026 with a one year transition for licensed issuers, while Galaxy and Mastercard both received BitLicenses in May 2026 and Paxos registered a securities settlement company with the SEC. Coinbase committed in March 2026 to more than 630 new research and development jobs at One Madison, growing toward 1,000 New York staff. Custody, settlement, security and compliance engineering roles are being staffed against those dates now.
The banks are back five days
JPMorgan Chase has required five days a week since March 2025 and filled its new 270 Park Avenue headquarters with 10,000 staff, Goldman Sachs has been fully in office since 2023, PNC went to five days in May 2026 and Truist ended hybrid in January 2026, while Citi still allows one or two remote days. New York office occupancy sat at 53.9% in the week to 2 September 2026. Bank and scale-up roles draw from different pools, so settle the attendance rule first.
Quant firms set the pay ceiling
The median New York software engineer reports $200,000 in total compensation, while Hudson River Trading averages $507,500 and Snap $510,000, and a quantitative developer at Citadel reports a national median of $575,000. A quantitative researcher in New York has a median package of $250,000. Those firms recruit the same data and platform skills as a payments company, so a mid-market search has to lead with scope, equity and stability.
Searches we have completed for New York employers
Full Stack Engineer
Our new client specializes in developing niche software applications for a wide range of customers across the country. They had just won a new project with a customer and needed a senior level Java Developer immediately to take on high level development responsibilities in addition to important client facing duties. Our client asked that we find a highly skilled Java Developer with outstanding communication and leadership skills within 48 hours. As a growing company, our client had never before partnered with an IT staffing agency; therefore, expectations were very high from the beginning. It’s no secret that Java development is one of the top three most in-demand IT skill sets, and in combination with the short timeline we had a tall task ahead of us. Finally, we have an in depth screening process we put candidates through which has led us to having one of the best “Submittal-to-Hire” ratios and at times, this process will take additional time in order for us to ensure we are presenting only exceptionally qualified candidates. What results were achieved?
- Our senior recruiters increased the number of Java candidates screened by >50% from a typical day’s output.
- We presented a well-qualified candidate to our client in less than 24 hours of receiving the requirements
- Our client interviewed and made an offer to our first and only submitted candidate within 72 hours of the requirement coming out
- Our candidate excitedly accepted the offer and started working with our client 2 weeks later
DevOps Engineers
This fast-growing cybersecurity software firm provides a unique information security offering to clients in both the government and commercial industries. Our client was trying to expand their DevOps engineering team but was running into multiple obstacles in their recruiting process. They kept losing out on candidates to other offers before they could finish interviewing the candidate and were really struggling to find candidates that were truly senior-level DevOps Engineers. With our extensive background in successfully recruiting DevOps Engineers, our client reached out to us once they had exhausted all of their internal recruiting options. We met with the DevOps Engineering Manager to understand the technical environment, the team’s culture and the future growth of the team and company. Within two weeks of receiving the position from our client, they offered a candidate we had recruited to their team and he started a few weeks later as their Sr. DevOps Engineer.
Data Scientist, Data Engineers, Data Analytcs
This digital media firm provides Fortune 500 companies like Capital One, Viacom, PayPal and others in Advanced Analytics modeling, forecasting, marketing and advertising expertise. Our client was in a real bind, they had understaffed Advanced Analytics teams for 6 of their high priority clients. Not only had they just lost their Manager of Talent Acquisitions, but their key leadership on the Advanced Analytics team left the firm in the middle of their expansion. Having had previous experience working with Digital Media firms and brand side marketing teams within Data Analytics, Data Science and Data Engineering, we were brought on to handle end-to-end recruitment for their Advanced Analytics teams. Initially, we met with the stakeholders, gathering key requirements for the various gaps within their analytics teams. We helped shape the hiring process for a variety of skill-sets( SEO, SEM, Programmatic, A/B Testing, Research, Predictive Modeling, MMM, MTA etc) Salary levels, and set in a service level agreement to allocate the necessary resources.
CTO
Our client is an established company selling via retail channels and business-to-business-oriented delivery operations. It was a key position responsible for overseeing digital print operations, and it was especially challenging since the previous GM had given two weeks’ notice unexpectedly. Our team presented five top-notch candidates with exceptional experience in planning, directing, coordinating operations and change management within the first week.
Network Security Engineer
A national milk marketing firm in the United States markets members’ raw milk and sells milk and derivative products to wholesale buyers both domestically and abroad. After trying to recruit for this client for 8 years they finally gave us a chance when they needed to grow their cybersecurity and network engineer team. They tasked us with finding and hiring 5 Network Security Engineers. Our cybersecurity recruiters sourced 656 network security candidates. Out of the 656 we ending up submitting 17 candidates and the client hired 5 candidates from us. Since then our relationship has expanded into several other skillsets to supplement their growing tech team.
Sr Software Architect
A leading wholesale provider of reinsurance, insurance and other insurance-based forms of risk transfer asked nexus IT group to find a Sr Software Architect to supplement their growing product suite. Our software development recruiters quickly sourced 256 candidates with expereince Java, Azure, and software architecture. The client interviewed 4 of the 7 candidates submitted and ended up hiring 1 individual.
Information Security Manager
Our client is a multinational financial services and asset management company headquartered in the UK. Its products and services include investment management, lifetime mortgages, pensions, annuities, and life assurance. Our client was referred to nexus IT group due to our prior experience with their VP of Talent. This Information Security Manager was their first internal cybersecurity hire in the US so it was important we got it right. Our cybersecurity recruiters quickly sourced 302 candidates, we submitted 6 candidates, and 1 candidate was hired.
Full Stack Engineer
Our client has a portfolio of companies which specialize in energy and agriculture sales, trading, and capital investments. Our client purchased a piece of software that focuses on the pricing of energy and agriculture commodities. The application was written in Matlab and .NET. The client is looking for a Full Stack Engineer to re-plattform the applcationto C# and angular technologies. Due to the culture of the company we had to source 411 candidates, submitted 5 candidates and 1 candidate was ultimately hired.
Four ways to staff a New York fintech team from a retained CTO search to contract build capacity
Executive Search (Retained)
We run retained searches for fintech leadership in New York, including CTO, VP of Engineering, Head of Platform and the risk and compliance technology leaders that regulated products require. Investors frequently sit in on these processes, whether the company is a scale-up in Flatiron or a crypto business under NYDFS supervision, so the shortlist has to survive a board conversation as well as a technical one. Our retained placements hold a 96% candidate retention rate.
Direct Hire
Fintech engineers in New York are courted heavily and rarely answer adverts, so our recruiters work outbound into payments, lending, trading and core banking depending on what the role actually touches. We deliver a vetted shortlist within 4 days of taking the requirement. One New York asset manager with $5.6BN under management had us screen 287 candidates and submit six inside two weeks, with the hire starting five weeks after kickoff.
Contract Staffing
Regulatory deadlines, migrations and integrations arrive with dates attached and often need capacity rather than headcount, as the NYDFS Part 500 certification cycle shows every April. We serve as both the recruiter and the W2 employer for the contract term, which keeps co-employment risk off your side and gives you a clean way to convert the engineer if the work becomes permanent. Our contract placements hold a 94.3% quality of hire ratio.
Recruitment as a Service
A New York fintech scaling after a funding round is usually hiring across engineering, data and product at the same time, which is where per-placement fees stop making sense. Our Recruitment as a Service subscription handles candidate marketing, sourcing, screening and delivery for the whole plan, leaving your New York engineers the technical assessment. We generate an engaged pipeline for a named fintech role in under 7 days.
What our fintech clients have said about working with Nexus IT Group
The great thing about nexus IT group is that it has a smaller family feel, but they are able to deliver IT candidates better than the largest IT staffing suppliers that we work with. They have delivered high quality cybersecurity professionals for several years to our firm.
I’ve been in Talent Acquisition for 15 years and have used many IT staffing firms over the years. I highly recommend Nick and nexus IT group over any other IT staffing services. nexus’ commitment to quality and delivery is top tier. They take the time to understand your needs, provide thorough screening, and make sure that candidates have a positive on-boarding experience.
Working with nexus IT group has made my job much easier. Having a recruiting firm who specializes in IT and within my industry, and who understands our specific culture and hiring needs has been instrumental in our talent acquisition talent strategy.
Capital One has used nexus IT group’s recruitment services for a number of IT positions at varying levels, over the past 4 years. We’ve had a high success rate working with nexus IT group which is a testament to the caliber of their work and their internal sourcing and vetting practices.
I’ve dealt with a lot of hiring firms in my 18 years in the investment banking profession, and the majority of them have been awful to mediocre at best. Dealing with Nexus IT Group, on the other hand, was a breath of fresh air. After only one one opening, I was blown away by the quality and quantity of resumes I received. Nexus IT Group pays close attention to my demands and requirements. As a result, the individuals who were referred to me were excellent fits for our open positions. I appreciate the personal and professional expertise you offer to the process.
SAIC provides government services to several federal agencies across the US. We needed to recruit several new cybersecurity talent for our growing practice area. Travis quickly understood our business and the requirements of each cybersecurity need. nexus IT group showed patience, flexibility, and expertise in the search process. If you’re looking for good cybersecurity recruiters then you can’t go wrong with nexus IT group.
It is hard to put into words what nexus IT group has done for our organization. nexus IT group knows exactly what we look for and they get the right candidates 99% of the time. Anyone looking to hire tech talent would be lucky to have nexus IT group on their side. They have great work ethic, responsive, and a wide array of market knowledge.
We’ve enlisted the help of a number of IT recruiting firms in the past. Nexus IT Group has contributed to the success of many great hires by working professionally, diligently, and efficiently. We contacted Nexus IT Group after being introduced to them, and we were instantly impressed by their promptness and ability to focus on our needs. We received 3 resumes the same day and 3 more the next day, and we were able to hire four people in less than a week. We added an additional individual through Nexus IT Group a few weeks later as a result of vast network, service and professionalism. I highly recommend working with Nexus IT Group.
Frequently asked questions about fintech recruiting in New York
It starts with a discovery call to define the role, the stack, the regulatory context and the onsite expectation. From there our recruiters run an outbound campaign to passive engineers in the New York market and hold three calls with each candidate before you see them, then deliver a shortlist of two or three. We stay in touch with every placed candidate for two years, and we travel for retained leadership searches.
Mostly the banks and asset managers, the venture-backed payments and lending scale-ups, the crypto exchanges and custody businesses, the market data and post-trade companies and the insurtechs. Those are the employers running platforms large enough to need specialist engineers, which is where an outside recruiter earns its fee. We also take searches from smaller New York fintechs hiring their first payments or compliance engineer.
It depends on the role and on how far the compensation sits from the market. A payments engineer or data engineer search typically produces a shortlist within a week, while a quantitative developer or CTO search takes longer. Current New York salary bands are a reasonable first check on whether a budget is in range, and where we have an active pipeline we can deliver candidates the day the contract is signed.
Both, and the mix follows the work. Contract and contract-to-hire is common for regulatory remediation, platform migrations and integration projects at New York banks, insurers and crypto businesses, while permanent placement and retained search cover the standing engineering and product teams. We are the W2 employer for the length of any contract, so the engineer can be converted later if the work proves ongoing.
Ask how many fintech roles they filled in the last twelve months and what their twelve-month retention is, then ask whether the recruiter on your search has placed the same role before. Our own figures are 96% of placed candidates still employed after twelve months and a 92% offer acceptance rate. A recruiter who cannot answer those questions for New York specifically is guessing at the market.