In this exclusive interview, we sat down with Andrei Gornostajev, who rejoined Wallester as Chief Technology Officer in January 2024. Bringing over two decades of experience, we know Andrei as a seasoned leader who has navigated the complexities of tech giants and innovative startups. Today, he offers us a unique perspective on his vision of cloud architecture and digital payments as the future of FinTech infrastructure.
Join us as we explore the mind of a leader who uses technical expertise and strategic vision to drive Wallester’s technology transformation.
Could you provide insight into the key experiences you had before joining Wallester?
Before rejoining Wallester as CTO, my career was diverse, giving me valuable insights into organizations of various scales and industries. For example, at Microsoft, I gained experience managing global teams and developing large-scale platforms for products like Teams and Skype, deepening my understanding of scalability and reliability. My first tenure at Wallester was also transformative—I was involved in designing the VISA card issuing platform from scratch, which laid the foundation for the company’s success. This mix of experiences in FinTech and global enterprises gives me the expertise to address the challenges in security, scalability and reliability that we are facing today.
Why Wallester?
When I joined Wallester in 2017, I saw great potential to innovate in FinTech; it was exciting to start a project of this scale with a clean slate and hire the first engineers. Returning now as CTO, what I value the most is the unique culture we’ve developed here. At Wallester, every person directly impacts the product, which is something truly special. Unlike other organizations, the company offers a close-knit environment where innovation and collaboration thrive. Here, we’re not just maintaining systems—we’re actively building the future of digital payments, which motivates this journey.
As Wallester’s CTO, you lead a team of more than 40 tech professionals. What excites you most about your role?
I am excited to lead a team that is truly building the future of digital payments. Our engineers come from different countries and backgrounds, bringing unique perspectives to our challenges. What excites me most is how we are building a platform ready for tomorrow and how our team approaches challenges.
What are the primary technical challenges in building scalable fintech platforms, and how have you addressed them at Wallester?
As a CTO, I’ve learned that scalability challenges in FinTech are unique and critical. At Wallester, we took a proactive approach from the start by leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS) and implementing a distributed microservices architecture. To ensure on-demand scalability and resilience during traffic spikes, we utilize Kubernetes, messaging, and data caching. At the same time, we place equal emphasis on maintaining robust security measures.
We maintain strict PCI DSS compliance, which involves carefully separating sensitive card data infrastructure and implementing robust access controls. We’re also preparing for the EU’s new DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) regulations, which increase our security and reliability requirements. This includes maintaining a risk management framework, managing incidents, conducting operational resilience testing, and overseeing third-party risk management.
How do you apply cloud technologies in Wallester’s infrastructure?
At Wallester, we have firmly committed to Amazon Web Services (AWS) as our technological backbone. We leverage tools such as Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), S3, Simple Queue Service (SQS), Simple Notification Service (SNS), and ElastiCache for Redis to ensure scalability. At the same time, Key Management Service (KMS) is used to manage cryptographic operations. Today’s infrastructure focuses on cloud technology, which includes our ongoing build-out of a more robust data warehouse and AI integration to improve fraud monitoring. This strategy ensures we have a robust and scalable platform ready for expansion.
What’s a project at Wallester that you’re particularly proud of?
One of the projects I am most proud of is the evolution of our card issuance platform. When we initially designed it, we made crucial architectural decisions that have proven critical to our growth. One of the most challenging and rewarding aspects was aligning our technical infrastructure with our deep understanding of the payments and cards business domain. In addition, we defined our Infrastructure as Code (IaC), which reduces the likelihood of manual errors, enhances reliability, accelerates disaster recovery processes, and ensures business continuity.
Another project that stands out is our internal back-office platform, which we built entirely in-house. This tool has become the backbone of our operations, integrating processes such as client onboarding and management, KYC/KYB, AML, financial reporting, and various operational activities.
Our decision and determination to develop and maintain our systems and tech in-house has proven invaluable over the years and makes our solutions more reliable, adaptive, customizable, and secure, giving us the agility to move at speed when needed with minimum reliance on outside vendors or partners. I love that we are the masters of our destiny.
The Wallester team named you the best newcomer of the year. What does this award mean to you?
It is a recognition that fills me with humility and gratitude. While I’m not technically a traditional “newcomer,” having previously been at Wallester, this return as CTO has been a completely new experience.
This award is especially significant because it comes from the team itself. Their praise reflects that success in technology is not just about technical skills but also how we work together as one team. Seeing them value my technical expertise and leadership approach makes me very happy.
What advice would you give to someone aspiring to become a CTO?
My main advice to someone aspiring to be a CTO is to build a solid foundation that integrates three critical dimensions: technical expertise, leadership skills, and business acumen. The key is to always think long-term while balancing these areas.
From a technical perspective, developing the ability to see beyond current technology is crucial. At Wallester, for example, we focus on building solutions for today and constantly evaluate how our technical decisions will impact our future growth and scalability.
Equally important is developing strong leadership and business understanding. This plays a key role in fostering a culture of continuous learning and building teams that can adapt to evolving challenges.
Oh, and a final tip: always stay curious, learn from others, and don’t fear taking calculated risks.
What trends in fintech technology do you believe will shape the next five years?
Based on our experience at Wallester and our industry observations, I see two major trends redefining the fintech landscape.
First, artificial intelligence is transforming how we approach financial services. At Wallester, we’re actively investigating how AI can enhance our operations – from using machine learning models to detect inappropriate card names to exploring AWS tools like Fraud Detection and SageMaker to strengthen our fraud monitoring systems.
Second, there’s a clear shift towards virtual cards and the innovative products built around them. As physical cards become less prevalent, we see increasing demand for virtual payment solutions. We’re responding by developing new products that meet evolving customer needs.
What are your primary goals for Wallester in 2025?
Looking ahead to 2025, I am very excited about our plans at Wallester. We focus on two main areas that will make a big difference. We will definitely be investing efforts with a focus on the scalability of our platform. With more customers coming on board and transaction volumes increasing, we need to ensure that our systems can handle this growth seamlessly.
We also have some significant new features planned that must remain a secret for now as we don’t want to spoil the surprise. All these initiatives reflect our commitment to growing efficiently while delivering more value to our customers.
