Jack Dorsey cut 40 percent of Block — 4,000 people — and said most companies will do the same. Here is what your fintech and payments experience is worth independently.

Block cut its workforce from 10,000 to just under 6,000 people — a reduction of more than 40 percent. CEO Jack Dorsey announced the decision in a letter to shareholders and was unusually direct about the cause: an internally built AI agent called Goose, which Block has been running in production for 18 months to execute tasks, draft communications, and automate workflows. Dorsey wrote that "everyone is going to be doing this soon." This was not a hedged corporate statement. It was a prediction about the industry.

Block's business — Square for small business merchants, Cash App for consumer payments, and Afterpay for buy-now-pay-later — is growing. These cuts are not a sign the company is struggling. They are a deliberate decision to use AI to reduce headcount while maintaining output, then redistribute that cost savings elsewhere. The CFO confirmed that specific AI productivity gains made over the past 18 months directly drove the reduction.

The people leaving Block have experience inside one of the most operationally complex fintech environments in the world: payments infrastructure, fraud and risk systems, consumer financial products, merchant onboarding, and regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions. That combination of technical depth and regulated industry experience is rare. It does not disappear because the company decided to run leaner.

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Fintech is one of the most active consulting markets right now. Community banks, credit unions, regional payment processors, and emerging financial services companies are all trying to modernize — and most of them do not have the internal expertise that Block employees built over years.

Payments and merchant services specialists from Block can command $175 to $325 per hour working independently with financial institutions, commerce platforms, and SaaS companies building payment features. Fraud and risk directors are particularly sought after: the skills required to build and manage fraud systems at Cash App's scale are directly applicable to any business handling transactions at volume. Retainers in fraud and risk advisory typically run $10,000 to $20,000 per month.

Afterpay experience in buy-now-pay-later product design and merchant integration is valuable to retailers and platforms exploring embedded finance. This is a growing category with few experienced practitioners. Former Afterpay product and operations leaders are in a narrow supply pool against strong demand.

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Block compensated senior engineers and product managers at $180,000 to $320,000 in total comp. Operations and compliance directors in the $200,000 to $350,000 range. The equity component was meaningful at a company that trades publicly and has had significant stock price movement over the years.

As an independent consultant, you are converting that expertise into direct cash flow without the four-year vest cycle. If your target is $200,000 in consulting income, plan for $260,000 to $270,000 in gross revenue once you account for self-employment tax and the cost of your own benefits — typically 30 to 35 percent above your take-home target.

Billable hours matter more than rate when you are starting. Most consultants bill between 800 and 1,200 hours in their first full year. At 1,000 hours and a $225 per hour rate, you are at $225,000 gross — before expenses. That is a realistic starting point for senior fintech professionals, not an aspirational one.

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Block built three very different products — Square for merchants, Cash App for consumers, Afterpay for credit — and you worked across an environment where the regulatory, technical, and commercial requirements were constantly intersecting. That cross-functional experience inside a regulated fintech is not something you can learn from a textbook or pick up in a few months. It takes years.

The positioning question is which part of that experience to lead with. If your background is merchant-facing — Square, payments, small business tools — you are most valuable to companies trying to build or improve their merchant experience. If your background is consumer-facing — Cash App, financial products, user behavior — you are most valuable to consumer finance companies trying to grow without losing trust. Those are different markets with different buyers.

The one thing that connects them: you have operated inside a company that moved fast in a regulated environment without breaking things catastrophically. That balance — speed and compliance — is exactly what most financial services organizations are trying to learn. You already know how to do it.

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