This week, I sat down with Christian Slaney, Head of People and Talent at Biconomy, one of the most exciting infrastructure startups in Web3. Christian made the leap from Klarna to crypto in 2022 and hasn’t looked back. In our conversation, he shares how hiring shifts when every role shapes the company, what signals matter more than CVs, and why AI won't replace recruiters... but bad processes might. If you’re scaling a startup or thinking about your first few hires, this one’s for you.
From Klarna to Biconomy: You moved from a major fintech to a web3 infrastructure startup. What drove that leap, and how did your approach change across those two different environments?
I made the move into Web3 in 2022 because it felt like the right time - the space was (and still is) evolving fast. It’s rare to be part of an industry where the fundamentals of the internet are up for grabs - and even rarer to help shape them. At Klarna, I learned a lot about hiring at scale but I missed the urgency and messiness of earlier-stage work. At Biconomy, every hire really matters and shapes where we go next. You’re not just filling a role, you’re thinking about how this person moves the company forward. I like that challenge.
At Biconomy, you are often hiring for deeply technical roles in the web3 space. How do you evaluate talent in a space where traditional CVs often don’t tell the full story?
Some of the best people we’ve hired didn’t even have a CV. In Web3, you quickly realise that very few top engineers have “senior” titles or FAANG logos. Their edge shows up in open-source contributions, side projects, or how they talk about on-chain problems on Discord or on Twitter. It’s about connecting a few signals: technical ability, crypto intuition, and a track record of actually shipping things. It takes more time to find those indicators, but it always pays off, and it’s closely tied to making a great hire stick.
For many startups, hiring feels like a bottleneck. From your experience, what are the underrated unlocks that actually make a hiring engine run smoothly?
It might not be “underrated” as such, but founder involvement is still one of the biggest unlocks I’ve seen. When founders are active in the process, it changes the dynamic. Hiring is a two-way street, especially in startups where culture is shaped top-down. Giving candidates real exposure to leadership gives them a strong sense of who we are and how we operate. At Biconomy, our leadership team takes an active role, and it’s made a huge difference. The other big unlock is clarity. Having a tight, consistent story — who you are, why now, and why someone should care — makes the whole process smoother. It raises the bar across the funnel, from the first message to the final decision. It also helps candidates self-select - they can tell early on if this is the kind of mission and pace they want to be part of.
How do you balance speed and quality in hiring, especially in fast-moving startups where “just get someone in” can often be the default mindset?
The key is knowing what “good” looks like before the pressure to hire kicks in. Otherwise, speed turns into guesswork. A lot of processes stall because different people are looking for different things so we try to front-load that alignment early. What are the non-negotiables? What’s flexible? What trade-offs are we willing to make? Every hire involves some compromise, and calling that out upfront makes decisions faster and cleaner. Speed isn’t about rushing - it’s about staying clear, being responsive, and removing anything that slows momentum. When you get those pieces right, you can move fast without cutting corners. This is critical in Web3, where strong talent doesn’t stay on the market long.
What’s your take on the future of recruitment? With AI tools and increased transparency, where do you see the biggest shifts coming?
AI is going to take over a lot of the heavy lifting — scheduling, consolidating notes, automating follow-ups, flagging bias, and bringing more consistency to the process. That’s a good thing. It frees up recruiters to focus on the things that actually drive great hiring: telling the story, building relationships, and spotting the kind of talent that doesn’t always show up on a CV. The recruiter role isn’t going away, but it is evolving. The real value will come from how well we work with AI, not compete with it. That means leaning into the qualitative side: understanding the real context behind a role, helping teams make better decisions, and ensuring candidates have a thoughtful, human experience from start to finish.
If you were advising a founder making their first 10 hires, what’s the one role they often hire too late, or too early?
Too late: A strong operations generalist or founder’s associate: someone who can jump into anything from setting up internal tooling and basic workflows to helping with hiring, onboarding, or launching MVPs. This kind of utility player makes everyone else faster and helps founders get out of the weeds. But they’re often hired too late — once everything is already stretched thin — when bringing them in earlier could’ve made a huge difference.
Too early: A Head of Strategy, VP of Product, or similar senior title brought in before there’s a clear team, scope, or problem to own. These roles can look great on paper, but early-stage companies need builders, not just thinkers. At that stage, strategy is execution and bringing in someone who isn’t hands-on usually ends up slowing things down.
