Ed Craven offering $100,000 sign-on bonus to work at stake.com

Ed Craven is raiding tech darlings, including Atlassian and Canva, offering sign-on bonuses of up to $100,000 for software engineers at his crypto and gambling empire.

Ed Craven (left) and Bijan Tehrani are offering Australian tech workers sign-on bonuses of up to $100,000 to come work for them. Picture: Julian Kingman

Australia’s youngest billionaire Ed Craven is offering sign-on bonuses of up to $100,000 as he raids the country’s biggest tech companies including Atlassian and Canva for talent to fuel “hyperscale growth” across his cryptocurrency and gambling empire.

Melbourne-based EasyGo Solutions, run by Craven and fellow co-founder Bijan Tehrani, says it is also offering salaries of up to “20 per cent more than industry standard” for senior and principal software engineers and engineering managers.

The company will also pay for interstate relocation costs as the tech talent war intensifies.

EasyGo Solutions chief technology officer Dave Lemphers said the company was experiencing “hyperscale growth” particularly across its subsidiaries Stake and Kick and needed more “top-tier talent” to achieve its ambitious goals.

“Hyperscale growth is significant because it introduces unique and complex engineering challenges that we must overcome to maintain and enhance our customer experience,” Mr Lemphers told The Australian.

“There are a handful of companies in Australia with experience solving complex engineering challenges at scale, including Atlassian, Canva, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Xero. Software engineers from these companies have hands-on experience with scaling complex systems. Their expertise is invaluable in helping us navigate similar challenges.”

Bijan Tehrani (L) and Ed Craven (R). Picture: Angelica Snowden/The Australian

It is offering sign-on bonuses from $50,000 to $100,000 to entice staff from other tech companies. Mr Lemphers said the exact amount would be determined based on information gathered during the interview process.

Australia will need an extra 300,000 tech workers by the end of the decade – a shortfall that is being compounded as debate rages about the country’s overseas migrant intake, and threatens to put the handbrake on reaping $600bn a year from the artificial intelligence boom, according to federal government forecasts.

At the same time, only 6000 science, technology, engineering and mathematics students are graduating from Australian universities each year, prompting EasyGo to plunder other local companies for talent.

Mr Lemphers said EasyGo was targeting senior and principal engineers and managers specifically, who have “extensive experience in solving engineering challenges associated with large-scale growth”.

“We recognise and value the unique skills and experiences these engineers bring. We offer compensation packages that are commensurate with their expertise and experience, including attractive sign-on bonuses.”

Mr Craven, 28, has a net worth estimated at $3.86bn, according to The List, making him Australia’s youngest billionaire.

He is not the only richlister who is seeking to overcome Australia’s tech worker shortage. WiseTech’s billionaire founder Richard White launched a program last year which pays students the equivalent of $300,000 to complete a university degree while working at the $31.2bn company. They are also eligible for WiseTech’s employee share program while they study.

EasyGo – which Mr Craven and Mr Tehrani founded in late 2016 – has been leasing more floor space at its office in Collins Street as it has grown exponentially from being a team of two to hundreds.

In February, it hired its 300th employee and now has an Australian workforce totalling more than 350.

The hiring spree has meant that Mr Craven can no longer shout workers out for lunch at Melbourne’s oldest building – Mitre Tavern – around the corner, which had become a tradition up until earlier this year when the inn’s managers said they could no longer accommodate EasyGo’s hundreds of staff.

Stake is one of the world’s biggest crypto casinos, taking on average $US400m each day. It claims to have taken more than 200 billion bets on its platform since launching seven years ago – including more than 100 million on its sports book.

It has become so big by 2022 that its owners claim it accounted for about 7 per cent of total Bitcoin transactions around the world daily.

While, using cryptocurrency to gamble in online casinos remains banned in Australia, EasyGo has been moving into more legitimate investments, including amassing almost 5 per cent of ASX-listed online bookmaker Pointsbet.

Last July, the company applied for a bookmaking licence in the Northern Territory. If it’s successful, it would mean it would become a mainstream operator competing with established online corporate bookmakers such as Sportsbet, PointsBet and Entain’s Ladbrokes and Neds, as well as the ASX-listed Tabcorp.

Mr Craven and Mr Tehrani have also registered a company name, Stake Gaming, with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission – the first time the duo has made a move to use their Stake brand locally.

It comes amid a flurry of deals – including partnering with small ASX-listed firm Racing and Sport Technology earlier this year to use its technology to launch a horse racing betting service – to propel further growth.

But its most flamboyant move to date has been buying the naming rights for Sauber Formula One team during the new year period, following the departure of Alfa Romeo. The foray into F1 – which followed a sponsorship deal with English soccer club Everton – aimed to ensure the Stake empire is catapulted further into the mainstream, alongside Mr Craven and Mr Tehrani’s successful new global streaming business Kick.

Their meteoric rise onto rich lists hasn’t been without controversy. They recently avoided a $580m claim against their company by a former business partner after a US court threw out the claim due to a lack of jurisdiction. It has also a legal petition lodged against it in Curacao from a group of customers.

Originally published as Ed Craven offering $100,000 sign-on bonus to work at stake.com