Career Crashers - Meet Fast: the Company Building One-Click Checkout for the Entire Web!

Summary: If you’ve ever struggled with the checkout process while trying to buy something online, this company is for you. Fast is a tech company founded in early 2019 with the mission of making buying online faster, safer and easier for everyone. In two short years they’ve raised over $120 million from investors and grown to over 100 people even through the pandemic. It all started when their CEO and cofounder, Domm Holland, watched his wife’s grandmother not be able to order groceries online, simply because she couldn’t remember her password. Domm envisioned Amazon’s one-click checkout feature, but for the *entire web*. I spoke with Nele Heinemann, Corporate Communications Manager, and Peter Grassi, Director of Talent Acquisition, and—you guessed it—the person to speak with if you’re interested in working there! As you’ll quickly learn, Fast isn’t just a startup building a great product that has tremendous opportunity. They’re also an inspiring, exciting place to work. It’s even in the company’s legal name! If you want to know what it is, go look in the footer of their website — Fast.co. While Fast is headquartered in San Francisco, they’re a fully remote, globally distributed team because they know that great talent is not just in the Bay Area. Domm himself is Australian, and Fast employs people all over the world. Peter’s one of the most interesting people I’ve ever talked to about hiring people and building a strong, happy team. He’s constantly looking for people in his blind spots, who might not come from traditional backgrounds. This philosophy is core to how Fast thinks about giving opportunity and adding people to their team—and I can guarantee it extends to every other department in the company. If you see yourself working at Fast, reach out with a strong pitch that shows why you’re excited about them specifically, how you’d love to contribute, and proof that you’re capable of doing it. You can connect with Peter, Nele, and the rest of the Fast team on LinkedIn of course, but Peter’s also very active on Twitter and appreciates the non-traditional ways of putting yourself on the radar for a role. If you enjoy discovering companies like this, check out our other episodes in this series—they’re on our YouTube channel, and right here where you get your podcasts!