From ML Engineer in Zurich to FinTech SaaS Founder: The Journey of David Álvarez de La Torre
Key Learnings and Insights from Working in Switzerland and Building a FinTech Product from Scratch
This week in The Tech Scene’s “Tech Stories” series, we sit down with David Álvarez de La Torre, CEO & Founder of BankTrack.
Originally from Barcelona, David takes us through his fascinating journey —from studying telecommunications engineering, to pivoting into Machine Learning at UBS’s Zurich office, and ultimately becoming the founder of a FinTech SaaS company helping businesses make smarter banking decisions.
Let’s dive into his story.
→ Enjoy stories like this one? Check out these other founder journeys:
Telecommunication Engineering & Securing a job in Switzerland
David initially chose to study Telecommunications Engineering in Barcelona, Spain because he was good at math and physics, and already knew how to code. Although not passionate about electronics, he found a strong interest in the multimedia branch of the degree, which involved signal processing, neural networks, and AI.
After completing a 4-year undergraduate degree, he pursued a 2-year master’s to earn the official title of "Superior Engineer," common in Spain. During the master's, they aimed to study abroad and targeted ETH Zurich in Switzerland, a highly prestigious university. To secure a spot, he achieved top grades and leveraged a university agreement to apply for an exchange program.
Getting accepted wasn't easy —professors at ETH are highly selective— but through persistence and a strong academic record, plus research internships in Spain (including two published papers and work at Telefónica Research), he secured a recommendation from a professor and finally gained entry into ETH’s Computer Vision department.
After completing his thesis at ETH, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Despite a tough job market, he found an opportunity at a major Swiss bank that was forming a new AI team. He passed the interview process and started working there shortly after, marking the beginning of their professional career in Switzerland.
Pros & Cons of living in Zürich
David highlighted both the pros and cons of living and working in Switzerland, particularly in Zurich. On the positive side, Switzerland attracts top global talent, creating a competitive and inspiring academic and professional environment. Zurich offers high salaries, low taxes (compared to countries like Spain), excellent infrastructure, and a high quality of life. Major tech companies like Google and Meta are present, along with many deep tech startups.
On the downside, David noted a highly competitive and sometimes socially difficult environment — recounting experiences where colleagues were overly focused on achievements and unable to disconnect. Personally, he didn’t love skiing or mountains, but still deeply value Zurich and would choose to live there if not in Barcelona.
In conclusion, despite its high cost of living, David highlighted how Zurich is one of the best cities in Europe for developers seeking career growth, strong salaries, and international opportunities.
How to land a job in Switzerland in the current job market
David explained that succeeding in the Swiss job market often requires what he calls a “Swiss Stamp” — a form of validation from a Swiss institution like a university or company. This stamp helps signal your credibility to employers. One common route is to study in Switzerland as an exchange student, which automatically gives you this advantage.
If you’re no longer a student, it becomes much harder — you have to compete directly with Swiss and international candidates, many of whom are highly qualified, often from top institutions like ETH Zurich.
To stand out, David recommended specialising in a niche area of software engineering, like an uncommon programming language or a specific technical domain (e.g., serverless on AWS). Proven experience and patience are essential.
He shared a story of a friend who, even with the “Swiss Stamp,” spent a year applying before landing a job. Persistence paid off.
Lastly, he shared a personal anecdote from working at a bank in Switzerland, where many of his coworkers held PhDs from elite institutions like Caltech — showing the incredibly high level of talent and competition.
How David transitioned from ML Engineering to being a FinTech Founder
Question: How was the transition to deciding to start a company—and not just any company, but a fintech software company, which is doubly difficult? How did that decision come about?
Answer: Okay, I’d have to go back a bit. I had just finished my studies and landed a job at a company that maybe wasn’t a great fit. I like to tell anecdotes—and one of them is about my first day at that job. I had never worn a suit in my life. It wasn’t a consulting firm; it was a bank. But I showed up with my shirt untucked, oversized, while others were sharply dressed, and I thought, “Hmm, I don’t think I fit in here.”
The first few months were okay—typical early-career stuff. Then COVID hit, second or third wave, and we were sent home. I ended up a bit burnt out from working remotely. About a year later, I decided I didn’t want to stay in Switzerland. I was bored, unmotivated, and didn’t feel like I belonged. I didn’t feel like I was adding value—I felt like a cost to the company. That really ate at me.
So I saw two options: start applying to startups (which I did and got a couple of interviews), or… do my own thing. I had been spending my free time building apps—one was a personal finance tracker. I thought, “If I don’t do this now, when will I?” So I declined the interviews, left the job, and moved back to Spain.
On Twitter, I saw a tweet from Nacho González (a known founder in Spain) looking for a CTO for a fintech app in Barcelona. It was great timing. I messaged him, and we clicked immediately. His idea was to send financial reports via WhatsApp. He had the funding experience; I had the tech. So I sold my side project for €1 on Twitter—just as a symbolic gesture—and we started building what became Banktrack.
Initially, it was just the two of us. I built the first version solo and we launched a beta in May/June. One of the testers, Carlos, gave amazing feedback, and we made him a cofounder. After a while, I was overwhelmed doing everything—frontend, backend, AWS—so once we had raised our first round (around €1M), I decided to hire a senior React developer and delegate the frontend.
We tried hiring backend developers, but some hires from structured companies didn’t adapt well to startup speed and ambiguity. It was better to move fast and test ideas quickly than to overengineer early.
After ~1.5 years, we realized our B2C fintech model wasn’t working. Very few B2C fintechs succeed—especially SaaS-style ones. So we pivoted to B2B, offering advanced financial dashboards. These resonated much better with clients. People started saying “wow.” We launched a €20/month plan and finally started getting paying users. Growth was slow but steady—first 5 users, then 10, then 30.
We had also been offering the product for free before, which was a mistake. Never again—we now believe in charging from day one.
When Meta ads stopped being effective (as CAC rose), we launched a €40 plan with new features like invoice storage. This made life easier for SMEs who had to track invoices across emails and websites. That was about a year ago.
So after 3 years, we really started monetising just about a year ago. The first year and a half felt lost, working on a product that didn’t monetise. The €40 plan helped, but for a VC-funded company, it wasn’t enough. We had to aim higher. You can’t raise VC and aim to sell for €3–5M—you need to aim for €50–100M+.
So we launched a €100 plan with treasury tools—cashflow monitoring, invoice categorisation, etc. We saw big players raising a lot of money in the “treasury software” space (e.g. Agicap in France, Embat in Spain). We tried to do something similar but targeted at SMEs.
But we learned that big companies and small businesses don’t behave the same. Enterprise tools are sold through consultative sales—cold calling, long cycles—offering efficiency gains to large finance teams. SMEs don’t operate this way.
It was a blast!
We hope you enjoyed this new version of The Tech Scene.
You can check out more interviews and articles here.
It’s been an absolute pleasure getting to talk to you again, David!
P.S.: For the Spanish speakers out there, you can watch the complete interview here:
Ready to Grow Your Professional Network? Here’s How:
👉 Nova Talent’s Network: Nova is a merit-based community and talent network filled with young, highly skilled professionals. If you’d like to join and be referred by me, you can apply here.
Are you a Software engineer looking to fast-track your career in Europe? Here’s how we can help:
DevAccelerator is a talent accelerator for software developers willing to boost their careers abroad.
👉 Join our waitlist here to be the first to know about upcoming cohorts and coaching programs.