Wade Arnold

When you open a new bank account, there’s usually one dominant emotion driving that decision: frustration. You’re fed up with your current financial institution. Maybe your account was mishandled, or you didn’t like the fees, or perhaps your bank just wasn’t meeting your needs. So, you decide to open a new account somewhere else.

I’ve always considered myself a software engineer by craft and an entrepreneur by accident. I never planned to end up in fintech, and I certainly never envisioned myself at the helm of a company like Moov. Technology has always been a passion of mine, and even as a CEO, I’m answering technical questions in our Slack community or commenting on pull requests on GitHub asking for test cases.

If I were still using paper checks, I’d write the date as 2020, because the last few years have been a blur. Somehow the world feels both suspended in time while making giant leaps in innovation at break-neck speeds. And even though I’d put Moov in the latter category, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture when you’re chasing the goals right in front of you

When I started in fintech, it wasn’t commonly called fintech yet. We just called it financial services back then. In that previous life, I spent a lot of time connecting to processors, and a lot of banking cores—42 of them, if I remember right. And all those hours working on integrations got me wondering, “How do you build a modern payment stack?”

What’s the best way to recruit phenomenal engineers? It’s not just the stock options and home office stipends (yeah, we do that, too). Engineers’ interest piques when they’re challenged. That’s why the best engineers want to attack gnarly problems.

I always wanted to host a fintech developer conference—the type where I wouldn’t have to dress up or smile for PR interviews. I just wanted a place to be myself, get inspired, and learn from like-minded people: the creators, developers, founders, and product geeks designing new technologies and bringing amazing products to market.

We’re excited to announce that our flagship developer conference is back and ready to bring together builders in 2022. fintech_devcon started as a way to democratize fintech knowledge across payments, compliance, finance, and more. It’s grown into the premier place for the best minds and builders in fintech to meet, learn, and network—all without the sales pitches.

I will judge my success at Moov based on the experiences of my employees. Not how many people we hire, how much money we raise, or how many dollars we move through our platform. Of course, these things are essential. But the milestones related to these areas of the business don’t matter if my people don’t feel challenged, accepted, safe, respected, inspired, and like they are doing the best work of their lives. For me, that’s the end goal—to make Moov the best place anyone has ever worked.