Everybody wants to work at Paystack

If you check the meta description of Paystack on LinkedIn, you're going to see: "Over 60,000 businesses trust Paystack to help accept online and offline payment from anyone, anywhere in the world".

High retention rate of staff, excellent documentation culture, and even healthier work culture—these are all attributes we associate with YC's first Nigerian startup, Paystack. Instagram user, @semudaraabayomi went to an event and asked attendees for their preferences between two African fintech giants, Flutterwave and Paystack, with the latter taking the lead.

A deep analysis of the video and you’ll unearth the reasons people prefer Paystack to to its contemporaries, even while they do almost everything are quite “flimsy”. Again, branding. It is why you prefer different products to another, even when you know they are no different from each other. Think about your favourite cereal, or beverage if you go to a store and these products are not available, you’ll visit the next store until you get it.

When Shola and Ezra decided to found Paystack in 2015, according to Shola, they had these core goals; try to build one of the best places to work on the continent, try to figure out how to empower businesses on the continent and figure out how to make connections work in the continent. It may not have started as that but in the 10 years since they have been present, it is safe to say their dreams are coming true.

If you check the meta description of Paystack on LinkedIn, you're going to see: "Over 60,000 businesses trust Paystack to help accept online and offline payment from anyone, anywhere in the world". It takes a certain amount of balls to be able to write that quite confidently.

The company has plenty of employees in seven countries but still made the time and effort to bring everyone together for their annual retreat in 2024. It goes beyond to say that the people culture is thriving. This extends to their past employees as well. Whenever an ex-stack leaves, they have nothing but good things to say about the company and its people, even when they are currently without jobs. All they see is positivity. It makes one think, what have they hacked to retain high-quality talents?

I found a Medium article from someone who worked there and it said the company entitles employees to three months of paid leave after working for 3 years. I believe this is one of their strategies. It reminds me of the e-commerce company, Zappos. Funny story, but with great similarities. They were both acquired by big companies in their industries, Amazon and Stripe but retained their brand identities. They still have their culture to keep doing what it is that makes them special.

When this $200 million acquisition happened in 2020, the biggest deal in the continent at that time, it felt like a collective win for all Nigerians. I think that replenished the hope and shaped the future of fintech. People who have worked at the company have gone on to build great companies. Think Grey, Mono, Chowdeck, and GoLemon.

Beyond the culture of excellence Paystack has built for itself and her people, I went to ask people about their experience. Their testimonies were the same: reliable, fast, and trustworthy. They shared how unbothered they are when Paystack is a part of the checkout option. There is no fear with them, and do you understand how skeptical Nigerians are when it comes to their money and online transactions?

Personally, I discovered I could easily pay for my original WAEC instead of going to my secondary school eleven hours away from Lagos. We say the internet made the world a global village, but with Paystack? It is bridging the gap for payment transactions. You almost never think of how accessible sending money or paying for things is if you did not experience it in the early 2010s.

When Paystack says businesses trust them, you only need to go to their testimonial page of their website and see just how much they really do. It’s not a gimmick for them.

My developer friend went on to share it is easy to integrate Paystack’s API into one’s business platform as a developer. He called it developer experience. Still on the technical aspect, he said the user experience is seamless and intuitive. Like all of my other friends had mentioned, the chances of a random customer having issues when making a payment is very low. Shola has always mentioned that the engineering department of the company is an integral part of what they do and they take their jobs very seriously, keeping them tested and trusted. Another friend complained about their charges but I chuckled because business is business.

Honestly, the more I kept reading about the company, the more I was amazed by just how much great work they’ve been able to accomplish. I don’t know if any other tech giant will be able to touch the helm of their garments when it comes to excellence.

But you know what intrigues me the most? The documentation culture. As far back as you can think of, there is someone, either an employee or the company’s blog, talking about the behind-the-scenes of the company. Well-documented information about the company can be found here.

Did I mention that Paystack is legit the face of diversity and inclusion on the continent? One thing I have realized in startup culture is choosing a face of the brand among its founders, and for Paystack, it’s Ezra. He represents the culture the company wants to be recognized for. I saw incredible representation of people during my research, their way of expression, and how proud they are of the company. To see your work have so much impact must be fulfilling.

I cannot think of a befitting end to this article except to say, I understand why everybody wants to work at Paystack.