Staff Software Engineer - Engine by Starling

Starling Bank; Cardiff; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private Medical Insurance

Pension scheme

Life insurance

Cycle to Work

Job summary

Engine by Starling is seeking a Staff Engineer to lead complex backend initiatives and shape its global banking platform. You’ll drive technical delivery, collaborate across teams, and own critical architectural decisions for scalable, secure services.

You’ll operate in a hybrid environment, mentor engineers, and contribute to tooling, automation, and new features that scale with the needs of banks worldwide. A passion for learning and excellence is essential.

Qualifications

• Experience delivering changes to critical systems in distributed environments.
• Maintains high standards for technical and coding excellence.
• Strong understanding of DevOps practices and CI/CD.
• Delivery of complex outcomes across multiple domains and teams.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with technologists and non-technical stakeholders.
• Coaching and mentoring team members to grow their careers.
• Leading technical delivery on large-scale projects.

Responsibilities

• Lead multiple complex projects from inception through to run.
• Be a technical leader, with or without a team.
• Own technical challenges critical to business success.
• Identify where tooling or processes can be enhanced and deliver changes.
• Collaborate with clients, solution architects, product owners, and engineers to meet goals.
• Understand how banks operate globally.
• Shape future capabilities including tooling, automation and architecture.
• Lead by example in code contributions and set high standards.
• Contribute to the platform and internal tooling.
• Build features and products from scratch in a configurable way.
• Share knowledge and foster a learning culture.
• Own projects, working in small teams across the bank.

Skills

Delivering change

Technical leadership

DevOps practices

Cross-functional collaboration

Coaching and mentoring

Large-scale delivery

Tools

Java

AWS

GCP

Microservice architecture

Kubernetes (EKS)

TeamCity

Terraform

Grafana

Job description

At Engine by Starling, we are on a mission to find and work with leading banks all around the world who have the ambition to build rapid growth businesses, on our technology.

Engine is Starling's software-as-a-service (SaaS) business, the technology that was built to power Starling, and two years ago we split out as a separate business.

Starling has seen exceptional growth and success, and a large part of that is down to the fact that we have built our own modern technology from the ground up. This SaaS technology platform is now available to banks and financial institutions all around the world, enabling them to benefit from the innovative digital features, and efficient back-office processes that has helped achieve Starling's success.

As a company, everyone is expected to roll up their sleeves to help deliver great outcomes for our clients. We are an engineering led company and we’re looking for people who are will be excited by the potential for Engine’s technology to transform banking in different markets around the world. Our purpose is underpinned by five 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 Engine - our preference is that you're located within a commutable distance of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person.

About Engineering at Engine by Starling

We’re looking for Backend Software Engineers to work on the Engine Platform and make our existing features work for banks all over the world as well as building new features from scratch that Starling hasn’t released in the UK market.

Engine by Starling engineers are excited about helping us deliver new features, regardless of what their primary tech stack may be. Hear more from the team in some case studies, below, and our work with Women In Tech.

• Day in the Life of a Software Engineer
• Running a Backend Team
• Check out our shiny new Engineering careers page

We are looking for engineers at all levels to join the team. We value people being engaged and caring about customers, caring about the code they write and the contribution they can make to banking around the world. 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 Engine, to continue changing banking for good.

As a Staff Engineer you will:

• Have the opportunity to lead multiple complex projects from inception through to run
• Be a Technical Leader, whether that be with a team to manage or without
• Take ownership of technical challenges critical to the success of the business
• Identify where existing tooling, applications, or processes can be enhanced and deliver innovative change
• Collaborate with clients, solution architects, product owners, and other engineers to help meet the client goals
• Obtain a wide and varied understanding of how banks operate around the world
• Shape the future capabilities of Engine, including our approach, tooling, automation and architecture.
• Lead by example in your contributions to the codebase, setting a high bar for others to aim for
• Contribute to our award winning platform and internal tooling
• Build new features and products from scratch in a configurable way
• Share your knowledge with those around you, contributing to our learning culture
• Own your projects, working in small teams across the bank to collaboratively deliver
• Aim for greatness in everything you do, staying curious and inquisitive
• Be part of a scaling team and organisation as we change banking for good

We’re open-minded when it comes to hiring and we care more about aptitude and attitude than specific experience or qualifications. We are very open about how we deliver software. For the most part we code in Java, but you need not be an expert when you join us! We believe in clean coding, simple solutions, automated testing and continuous deployment. If you care enough to find elegant solutions to difficult technical problems, we’d love to hear from you.

As a Staff Engineer you will bring the below experience or knowledge:

• Delivering change to critical systems in a distributed environment
• Be a highly proficient developer, maintaining a high standard for technical and coding excellence in the collective, through your own work
• Good understanding of DevOps practices
• Delivering complex outcomes across multiple domains and teams
• Working cross-functionally with technologists from other specialties, and non-technical stakeholders across the business
• Coaching and mentoring members of a team to upskill and develop them in their career
• Leading the technical delivery on large scale projects to successful completion

The main part of our Backend 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, which makes up the majority of our backend codebase
• AWS & GCP - we're cloud-native
• Microservice based architecture
• Kubernetes (EKS)
• TeamCity for CI / CD (with multiple production releases per day)
• Terraform and Grafana

Our Interview 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 interview with an Engineer - ~45 minutes
• Take home technical test to be discussed in the next interview
• Technical interview with some Engineers - ~1.5 hours
• Final interview with our CTO / deputy CTO ~45 minutes
• 33 days holiday (including public holidays, which you can take when it 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, MrMrs Smith and Peloton
• Generous family-friendly policies
• Incentives refer a friend scheme
• 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.

Engine by 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 Engine by 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.

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