Ed Craven Poaches Tech Talent with Lavish Sign-On Bonuses

Australia’s youngest billionaire and co-founder of crypto gambling platform Stake.com, Ed Craven, will pay sign-on bonuses of up to $100,000 to get the best tech brains in the country working for him at EasyGo Solutions. Co-founded by Craven and Bijan Tehrani and based in Melbourne, the fintech is raiding major Australian tech firms such as Atlassian and Canva as part of a rapid expansion into cryptocurrency and online gaming.

EasyGo Solutions Offers Higher Salaries and Relocation Packages

EasyGo Solutions is also offering salaries 20% higher than industry standards for senior software engineers, principal software engineers and engineering managers, covering interstate relocation costs and providing “top-end” benefits, reported The Australian. 

EasyGo chief technology officer Dave Lemphers said experienced engineers were needed to tackle problems related to “hyper-scale growth”. He added that companies such as Atlassian, Canva, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google had experience scaling complex systems — making their employees among the most prized in Australia.

The Australian tech sector is grappling with a skills shortage expected to leave it needing 300,000 extra workers by the end of the decade. However, just 6,000 domestic students graduate each year with science, technology engineering, or math degrees. This has forced companies such as EasyGo to poach from other local firms.

EasyGo Solutions Doubles Down on Growth, Moves into Bigger Melbourne Office

EasyGo Solutions has taken on additional office space on Collins Street in Melbourne as it has grown from two staff members to more than 350 since being founded five years ago.

EasyGo Solution’s subsidiary Stake.com is among the world’s largest crypto casinos and takes about AUD400 million ($266.8 million) worth of bets per day after processing more than 200 billion wagers since its inception seven years ago. 

While Australians are banned from gambling online with cryptocurrency, EasyGo Solutions has diversified its investments by taking nearly 5% of ASX-listed online bookmaker PointsBet and applying for a bookmaking license in the Northern Territory.

EasyGo Solutions also plans to open a hub in Bogotá, Colombia — after buying Betfair’s Colombian operations — and hire more than 50 staff across Latin America by the end of the year. Additionally, it will also move into Peru, Mexico and Paraguay. 

Craven and Tehrani’s strategy features high-profile deals such as acquiring naming rights for Sauber Formula 1 team and sponsoring English Premier League team Everton, aimed at catapulting Stake.com into the mainstream.