Fintech
A controversial former Morgan Stanley technology chief is hiring senior engineers in fintech
From leaving Morgan Stanley for fintech, Rob Rooney has been quietly but steadily hiring for HyperJar, the fintech digital wallet where he is CEO. In 2024, HyperJar was building his list of senior technologists, hiring from rival fintechs and quantitative trading.
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HyperJar’s most recent hire is Keith Pyle, who joins as head of core engineering. Pyle has spent the last two years at fintech trading platform Capital.com and previously also worked in Hong Kong digital resource OSL company. Before all that, he spent 16 years at IG Group, a $3 billion trading platform and part of the fintech wave of the early 2000s. Pyle specializes in low-latency programming, Python and Java.
Another HyperJar hire in April was Richard Rose, head of engineering for SaaS (software as a service). Rose, by contrast, has spent decades in traditional finance, holding director roles Morgan Stanley, RBS and UBS, focused on areas including low latency creation of the electronic market. He has spent the last six years as CTO of an algorithmic trading platform at Cabestan Quant Research.
Rooney hasn’t always been popular at Morgan Stanley, but he has an 82% approval rate at Hyperjar on Glassdoor. Negative reviews from last year say the team lacks “a sense of camaraderie and rapport,” while more positive reviews praise the “nice” office and “great people.”
HyperJar cut headcount last year by moving away from its purely B2C offering and also adding B2B products. A spokesperson said the engineering team is larger as a result.
Rooney cut tech headcount at Morgan Stanley in 2019. In doing so, he received praise from superiorsbut he certainly wasn’t loved by everyone.
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