Starling is the UK’s first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! We built a new kind of bank because we knew technology had the power to help people save, spend and manage their money in a new and transformative way.
We’re a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive tech company. We’re a bank, but better: fairer, easier to use and designed to demystify money for everyone. We employ more than 3,000 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester offices.
Our technologists are at the very heart of Starling and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment that is all about building things, creating new stuff, and disruptive technology that keeps us on the cutting edge of fintech. We operate a flat structure to empower you to make decisions regardless of what your primary responsibilities may be, innovation and collaboration will be at the core of everything you do. Help is never far away in our open culture, you will find support in your team and from across the business, we are in this together!
The way to thrive and shine within Starling is to be a self-driven individual and be able to take full ownership of everything around you: From building things, designing, discovering, to sharing knowledge with your colleagues and making sure all processes are efficient and productive to deliver the best possible results for our customers. Our purpose is underpinned by five Starling values: Listen, Keep It Simple, Do The Right Thing, Own It, and Aim For Greatness.
Hybrid Working
We have a Hybrid approach to working here at Starling - our preference is that you're located within a commutable distance of one of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person.
Our Engineering Environment
Starling engineers are excited about helping us deliver new features, regardless of what their primary tech stack may be. Hear from the team in our latest blogs or our case studies with Women in Tech.
We value people being engaged and caring about customers, caring about the code they write and the contribution they make to Starling. People with a broad ability to apply themselves to a multitude of problems and challenges, who can work across teams do great things here at Starling, to continue changing banking for good.
Requirements
We’re seeking highly motivated engineers with around 3-4 years of Java experience to play a key role in our Finance Engineering team. You will take part in writing and supporting key financial systems such as the bank’s ledgers and the systems that integrate with them.
We're looking for engineers who have good attention to detail and can write clear, concise and maintainable code. You should have a good understanding of the lifecycle of a project and be able to engage in this process with internal stakeholders, as well as experience in designing systems to solve problems. Experience with Postgres is highly desirable, and any experience with Netsuite would be a bonus.
We’re open-minded when it comes to hiring; we care more about aptitude and attitude than specific qualifications. We code mostly in Java, with some TypeScript, but you need not be an expert when you join us! We care about the quality and resilience of the systems we build, and if you’re motivated to find elegant solutions to difficult technical problems, we’d love to hear from you.
The main part of our Tech Stack is listed below. We don't ask that you have experience in all of this, but if you do, that's great!
- Java (makes up the majority of our backend codebase)
- Postgres
- AWS & GCP (we're cloud-native)
- Distributed service-based architecture
- Kubernetes (EKS)
- TeamCity for CI/CD (we release our changes frequently throughout the day!)
- Terraform and Grafana
The Team
The Finance Engineering team sits at the core of the bank, and is responsible for the correct accounting of every transaction that passes through the bank's systems. Our team focuses on correctness and accuracy of transactions, on recording the underlying story of money as it moves, and on supporting and automating the complex financial processes that take place behind the scenes.
We work directly with the treasurers and accountants that allow the bank to thrive, and with every project and system within the bank that has financial impact. This is a unique opportunity to work with some of Starling's mission-critical services and products.
Our process:
Interviewing is a two way process and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you! Our interviews are conversational and we want to get the best from you, so come with questions and be curious. In general you can expect the below, following a chat with one of our Talent Team:
- Initial phone call - ~45 minutes
- Take home technical test to be discussed in the technical interview - ~3 hours
- Technical interview - ~1.5 hours
- Final Interview - ~40 minutes
Benefits
- 25 days holiday (plus take your public holiday allowance whenever works best for you)
- An extra day’s holiday for your birthday
- Annual leave is increased with length of service, and you can choose to buy or sell up to five extra days off
- 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
- Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
- Life insurance at 4x your salary & group income protection
- Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton
- Generous family-friendly policies
- Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks
- Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and Electric Vehicle (EV) leasing
About us
You may be put off applying for a role because you don't tick every box. Forget that! While we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we're always open to discussion. So, if you're excited about working with us, but aren’t sure if you're 100% there yet, get in touch anyway. We’re on a mission to radically reshape banking – and that starts with our brilliant team. Whatever came before, we’re proud to bring together people of all backgrounds and experiences who love working together to solve problems.
Starling is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Starling are considered without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. When you provide us with this information, you are doing so at your own consent, with full knowledge that we will process this personal data in accordance with our Privacy Notice.
By submitting your application, you agree that Starling may collect your personal data for recruiting and related purposes. Our Privacy Notice explains what personal information we may process, where we may process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over our use of your personal information.
Skills Required
- Approximately 3–4 years of Java experience
- Ability to write clear, concise, maintainable code
- Understanding of the project lifecycle
- Experience engaging with internal stakeholders
- Experience designing systems to solve problems
- Good attention to detail
- PostgreSQL experience
- NetSuite experience
What We Do
Hello, we’re Starling. Banking was broken – so we decided to fix it. The vision? Fast technology, fair service and honest values. All at the tap of a phone, all the time. We built Britain’s first digital bank. One hard-won banking licence later, we set about giving people a new way to spend, save and manage their money (and take better care of the planet, too). We’re changing banking for good. Back then, we were obsessed with unravelling the knotty world of finance and solving people’s problems rather than selling them stuff. We still are. Since then, we’ve grown. A lot. Over three million accounts (and four account types!). A team of thousands. Headquartered in London with offices in Cardiff, Dublin, Manchester and Southampton. Five years voted Which? Recommended Provider and Britain's Best Banking Brand. Still zero branches. Our culture is open, inclusive and focused on solving real customer problems, with an emphasis on doing the right thing, even when it’s not always the easy thing. From our approach to working together and sustainability to how we build our products, our decisions need to make the world – and Starling – a better place to be. Everyone at Starling is essential to our mission, which is really quite simple: to solve our customer’s problems – and build the best bank in the world! And now we're providing Starling to other banks, via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) proposition through our subsidiary Engine, using the proprietary technology platform that it uses to power our own bank.
