How Brex hires – and why they don’t need referral bonuses to win
Brex is doing something right. Actually, many things right.
They've built a $300M+ ARR business. They were valued at $12.3B in 2022. The Brex Mafia is already a thing, and they're not even 10 years old. Their success stems from building an excellent corporate banking product, but also to the talent strategy that founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi wove into the company's DNA.
They started Brex during YC (after pivoting from a VR product three weeks into the program), selling to their batchmates before targeting other startups with similar problems. Their “dream big” core value applies not only to their product or growth goals, but also to their team and talent strategy.
Let’s take a look at how they built a team that wins.
Good people know good people
Chief Sales Officer Sam Blond believes “hiring the right people is the most important thing you can do to build a successful business.” But here’s something counterintuitive: Brex doesn't do referral bonuses. They see recruiting as part of every job function, not something that needs extra incentivization.
Sam also shared that the first 60 of Brex’s sales hires were all internally sourced. Their miss rate? Only one out of sixty. It makes sense: if you’ve worked with someone closely before Brex, you’re more certain they can actually do the job you need them to do. And effect is is compounded when hiring a sales leader, because those leaders usually bring their star players with them.
This network-based approach creates a powerful flywheel: star players who come through internal referrals are extra motivated to perform, knowing their success reflects on who brought them in. Meanwhile, the referring sales leader is deeply invested in their success—far more than they would be with a random inbound hire.
Brex complements this with a "promote out of want and not out of need" policy. Instead of promoting people to fill management gaps when they have to (a ‘need’), they advance folks who’ve demonstrated they can have an outsized impact at a higher level (a ‘want’). It's promotion based on potential, not just necessity.
“Recruiting is the only thing that matters…. This is why we are successful as a sales org. It’s all about the people. I wish that I could say I had some silver bullet with regard to strategy or something like that that has really taken the company out from a growth perspective. It’s the people, that’s it.” - CSO Sam Blond on Brex’s recruiting principles
Leverage your leaders
Brex knows that great leaders create multiplicative value; their positive (or negative) impact extends beyond their own direct work. It's measured in how they motivate teams to exceed goals, organize complex projects and make them more efficient, and distribute learnings.
The founders focused on hiring leaders who could attract, build, and retain teams that embrace challenges and excel in the face of obstacles. These executives could not just perform well themselves, but also build and inspire high-performing teams.
Brex’s founders specifically sought leaders with experience in a hypergrowth environment, where you win faster, fail faster, and are forced to adapt faster. Henrique Dubugras shares:
“This resilience and pattern recognition is nearly impossible to find outside of leaders who have had a seat on a rocketship previously. So, we optimized our search for people with this background…. These executives bring the experience of not only seeing fast growth, but importantly, of mistakes made during fast growth.” These leaders could would leverage these learnings in their new team at Brex, to ensure the same mistakes aren’t made twice.
Dream big, from day one
Founder and CEO Pedro Franceschi emphasizes the importance of creating a culture of growth: “Approach life with a curious mind — your potential isn't limited by the qualities you have today. Surround yourself with those who make you grow.” From their careers page:
“Helping our customers reach their full potential starts with helping our team reach theirs.”
This isn't just talk. It's built into their core values – along with the ambitious “dream big”, “growth mindset” and “impatient optimism” are two less-common values underlying the team’s mindset.
These values attract ambitious, optimistic people who share Brex’s vision. It also makes it clear that asking questions and aiming high, continuously striving for improvement, and delivering fast at high standards are expected since day one.
Invest in talent early
While other companies fight over experienced hires, Brex has built a systematic approach to developing early talent:
- They launched the Early Career Engineering Pod for entry-level talent. It’s both a discussion forum and a platform where from senior engineers give career advice.
- Their internship programs pair each intern with both a manager and a mentor to help them onboard, track progress, and provide feedback and guidance.
- They partner with underrepresented student organizations like the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), Women in Information and Computer Sciences (WICS), and Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
- They actively recruit at conferences promoting underrepresented demographics in tech
These initiatives not only help Brex increase the number and diversity of high-quality incoming talent, but promote the growth and retention of young talent in the engineering org.
This isn’t just about filling headcount. These initiatives build a strong talent pipeline for Brex while increasing diversity in their engineering org. They also help promote the growth and retention of engineering talent.
Brex’s talent strategy seems simple in theory: make hiring everyone's responsibility, promote based on potential rather than necessity, adopt values that push your team’s potential, and invest heavily in early talent. But it’s difficult to replicate in practice, since it involves commitment to building a strong talent org across the entire company. Brex committed to talent, in the hopes that everything else would follow, and they were right.
After all, as Sam Blond notes, there are no silver bullets in Brex’s growth strategy. Except, perhaps, for building a team so good that silver bullets become unnecessary.
What you can implement today:
Build your talent database: Brex’s network based hiring relies heavily on employees' personal and professional connections. When someone joins your team, ask them about star players they'd love to work with again. Create a database for these potential referrals. Smaller companies can leverage professional recruiters who maintain similar networks
Prioritize leadership impact: When hiring leaders (or people who could become leaders), look for both individual capabilities and how they impact teams. Ask about how they've developed talent, spread knowledge across organizations, and handled complex project organization. The right leader should be able to attract and inspire other high performers.
Sharpen your values: Review your values—are they too broad? They should both reflect your operational model and act as a filtering mechanism for hiring. You also can try working backwards. Look at your high-performers: what traits do they share, that contribute positively to your culture? These are the qualities you should screen for.
Think beyond the offer letter: Don't just focus on hiring early talent—build systems to develop and retain them. Consider adopting Brex's practice of having early-career candidates chat with engineers across different teams and levels, showcasing your culture while giving candidates broader exposure to different parts of the organization.
Start your search today.
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