Case Study: Scaling Product and Engineering at GoFundMe

Written By Stephen Fogarty

Client: GoFundMe
Engagement Type: Retained Team Build
Duration: 3 Months

Roles Filled:

  • Staff Software Engineer (Payments)

  • Distinguished Engineer (Payments)

  • Staff Product Manager (Messaging & Marketing)

“Steve and the team at Scalrr were fantastic partners as we looked to bring in senior Engineering and Product Management talent. They were able to generate a strong pipeline with well-qualified candidates from Tier 1 companies, enabling us to fill multiple critical roles at GoFundMe in a 3-month engagement.

— Janahan Vivekanandan, SVP Engineering, GoFundMe

The Challenge

GoFundMe was entering a key phase of platform innovation and growth. Following the integration with Classy, their team needed to scale rapidly across engineering and product to support critical initiatives in payments infrastructure and user engagement. With hard-to-fill roles like Staff and Distinguished Engineers, and a Staff PM tasked with building user-to-user messaging, the stakes were high and timelines were tight.

Why This Work Mattered

GoFundMe is more than a fundraising platform — it’s a global movement. Since 2010, the company has empowered over 30 million people to give or receive help, raising more than $30 billion across 190 countries. Every second, a donation is made through GoFundMe to support causes that matter most.

In 2022, GoFundMe joined forces with Classy, expanding its reach into nonprofit fundraising and accelerating its mission to build the most helpful place in the world. Supporting this team wasn’t just about filling roles — it was about helping scale technology that enables people to help each other during their most urgent and meaningful moments.

We were proud to contribute to a company doing genuine good in the world.

Our Approach

Scalrr deployed a dedicated team of three partners under our Team Build model. We operated as an embedded extension of GoFundMe’s recruiting team, integrating closely with both Engineering and Product leadership. Key elements of our approach included:

  • Weekly standups with hiring managers and stakeholders

  • Joint Slack channels for rapid communication and feedback

  • Client visit during our San Francisco offsite to deepen alignment

  • High-touch collaboration with internal recruiters to co-manage pipeline and process

This close coordination allowed us to deeply understand team needs, iterate on candidate profiles in real-time, and accelerate decision-making across interviews.

The Results

In just 3 months, Scalrr helped GoFundMe successfully hire:

  • Staff Software Engineer, Payments:
    A deeply technical individual contributor with 10+ years of backend experience, specializing in payment infrastructure at scale (KYC, ledgering, reconciliation), and fluent in Kotlin, AWS, and Spring Boot.

  • Distinguished Engineer, Payments:
    Originally outside the initial scope, this hire was added after GoFundMe saw the strength of our pipeline. This rare principal-level engineer brought architecture leadership across financial systems and deep expertise in scalable payment platforms and microservice infrastructure.

While this candidate was initially considered for a Director of Payments role, GoFundMe chose to promote internally. However, the team was so impressed by this candidate's technical depth and alignment that they hired him as a Distinguished Engineer while awaiting another future leadership opportunity.

  • Staff Product Manager, Messaging & Marketing:
    A strategic and technical PM with deep experience in omnichannel platforms and user engagement systems. This hire is now leading the build of GoFundMe’s first user-to-user messaging product—critical to their vision of a philanthropic marketplace.

Why It Worked

  • Top-Tier Talent: We sourced candidates from leading companies across fintech, SaaS, and consumer tech, all with a proven ability to operate in complex, mission-driven environments.

  • Process Rigor: From intake to offer, we upheld a structured but flexible process tailored to GoFundMe’s unique needs and culture.

  • Trusted Partnership: Scalrr acted as an extension of GoFundMe’s team, maintaining transparency, speed, and alignment from start to finish.

  • Flexibility Under Pressure: When the original Director-level search pivoted due to an internal promotion, we quickly reengaged the candidate, reframed the opportunity with the hiring manager, and landed him in a critical individual contributor role — preserving momentum and positioning him for the next leadership opening on the team.

Conclusion

This engagement exemplifies Scalrr’s ability to fill high-caliber engineering and product roles quickly and collaboratively for high-growth companies. By embedding ourselves in the hiring process and aligning closely with leadership, we helped GoFundMe make multiple strategic hires that will power their next phase of product innovation and impact.

Stephen Fogarty
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