Java Software Engineer - Getting Paid & Open Banking

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 at least 3-4 years of Java experience to play a key role in our Getting Paid & Open Banking team. In this role, you will develop and maintain innovative capabilities that empower businesses to collect payments seamlessly and integrate their accounts with third-party providers. We’re looking for engineers who have excellent attention to detail and can write clear, concise and maintainable code. You should have a strong understanding of delivering robust, scalable systems and a proven track record of engineering excellence. Experience with AWS and Postgres is highly desirable.

We’re open-minded when it comes to hiring; we care more about aptitude and attitude than specific qualifications. 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.

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) 
• AWS & GCP (we're cloud-native)
• Distributed service-based architecture
• Kubernetes (EKS)
• TeamCity for CI/CD (lots of teams are releasing code 15-20 times per day!)
• Terraform and Grafana

The Team:

The Getting Paid & Open Banking team plays a pivotal role at the edge of Starling, delivering tailored solutions that enable small to medium sized businesses to get paid; including features like Invoicing, Tap to Pay, and Settle Up for Business.

Our responsibilities also span maintaining our Open Banking API, our proprietary PSD2 public API, the Starling Marketplace, and the peer-to-peer ecosystem underpinning Confirmation of Payee.

As a direct participant in Open Banking, we are beginning to explore innovative ways to enhance our core banking product, with features like Easy Account Top Up, in the Starling app exemplifying this approach.

By joining our team, you will have the exciting opportunity to engage in both technical and product engineering; delivering real value to our customers while collaborating closely with external third-party partners.

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.