Staff Software Engineer (Team Lead) - Engine by Starling

Starling; Southampton; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

33 days holiday including public holidays

Extra day’s holiday for your birthday

Company-enhanced pension scheme

Private Medical Insurance with family-friendly policies

Referral incentives

Cycle to Work program

Job summary

A leading financial technology firm in Southampton is seeking a Staff Engineer to lead and mentor a high-performing team in a hybrid working environment. The role emphasizes ownership of technical challenges and collaboration on critical projects. Ideal candidates will have strong Java skills and a proven track record in engineering leadership. An exciting opportunity to innovate and shape the future of banking technology.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading and mentoring high-performing engineering teams.
• Delivering change to critical systems in a distributed environment.
• High standard for technical and coding excellence.
• Good understanding of DevOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Coach, mentor, and grow a high-performing team.
• Lead multiple complex projects from inception through to run.
• Get hands-on, using strong system design skills.
• Shape the future capabilities of Engine.

Skills

Leading and mentoring engineering teams

Delivering change to critical systems

Proficient in Java

Understanding of DevOps practices

Coaching team members

Tools

Java

AWS

GCP

Kubernetes

Terraform

TeamCity

Job description

Overview

Engine by Starling is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business built to power Starling Bank. Engine operates in a fast-paced environment with a flat structure to empower decision-making, innovation and collaboration. The role is based in Southampton, United Kingdom, and the team embraces a hybrid working approach to enable in-person collaboration when feasible. Our mission is to provide banks and financial institutions worldwide with innovative digital features and efficient back-office processes through Engine's technology platform.

As a Staff Engineer you will

• Coach, mentor, and grow a high-performing team, ensuring their well-being as they work on high-impact solutions that bring value to Engine and our customers.
• Have the opportunity to lead multiple complex projects from inception through to run.
• Get hands-on when needed, using strong system design skills to help the team make smart architectural decisions and unblock complex challenges.
• 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 client goals.
• Obtain a wide and varied understanding of how banks operate around the world.
• Shape the future capabilities of Engine, including approach, tooling, automation and architecture.
• Lead by example in codebase contributions, setting a high bar for others to aim for.
• Champion a healthy engineering culture built on continuous improvement, technical excellence, and a focus on the customer.

As an Engineer you will

• Contribute to our award-winning platform and internal tooling.
• Build new features and products from scratch in a configurable way.
• Share 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.

Requirements

We’re open-minded when it comes to hiring and 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. We have built our entire banking platform in-house, mostly in Java, and we are looking for people who want to work on building tooling used by our engineers daily.

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

• Proven experience leading and mentoring high-performing engineering teams
• Delivering change to critical systems in a distributed environment
• Being a highly proficient developer with a high standard for technical and coding excellence
• 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
• Coaching and mentoring team members to upskill and develop their careers
• Leading the technical delivery on large-scale projects to successful completion

Backend tech stack (highlights)

• Java forms the core of our backend codebase
• AWS & GCP – cloud-native
• Microservice-based architecture
• Kubernetes (EKS)
• TeamCity for CI/CD (with multiple production releases per day)
• Terraform and Grafana

Our Interview process

• Initial interview with a Staff or Principal Engineer (~45 minutes)
• Take-home technical test to discuss in the next interview
• Technical & Leadership interview with some Engineers (~1.5 hours)
• Final interview with CTO/deputy CTO/Engineering Director/Principal Engineer (~45 minutes)

Benefits

• 33 days holiday (including public holidays)
• Extra day’s holiday for your birthday
• Annual leave increases with length of service; option to buy or sell up to five extra days
• 16 hours paid volunteering time per year
• Salary sacrifice, company-enhanced pension scheme
• Life insurance at 4x salary & group income protection
• Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care; partner discounts
• Generous family-friendly policies
• Referral incentives
• Perkbox membership with retail discounts and well-being perks
• Cycle to Work, Salary-Sacrificed Gym partnerships and EV leasing options

About Us

You may be put off applying for a role because you don’t tick every box. We’re open to discussion on flexible working. Engine by Starling is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Employment is considered without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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