Platform Engineer - Engine by Starling

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, and is the technology that was built to power Starling Bank. Engine split out as a separate business in early 2024. 

Starling Bank 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.

Our technologists are at the very heart of Engine 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 Engine is to be a self-driven individual and be able to take full ownership of everything around you: From building things, designing, and 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 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 one of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person. 

About Engineering at Engine by Starling

The Cross Cutting Engineering team at Engine is the backbone of our innovation. We're dedicated to building and maintaining the reliable, scalable, and maintainable infrastructure and tooling that powers our entire software delivery pipeline - from the first line of code to seamless production deployment and ongoing operations. We own the lifecycle of our features, tackling complex challenges with a first-principles approach and fostering a multi-disciplinary environment where you're encouraged to explore and contribute across the platform.

As a Platform Engineer at Engine, you'll be at the forefront of building and scaling our cutting-edge cloud-native banking platform across multiple global cloud providers and regions. We're looking for engineers with a strong SRE mindset, who embrace ownership of the entire software delivery pipeline, and are passionate about building internal tooling that empowers our technology teams to operate their applications flawlessly in production.

Don't worry if you don't tick every box below! We value curiosity, a willingness to learn, and a desire to work across multiple disciplines. If you're excited by the challenges of building and operating a global, cloud-native platform, we encourage you to apply.

We have a great team - read about our work with Women In Tech, a Day in the life of a Software Engineer at Engine and our interview with our Staff Platform Engineer.

What you'll get to do?

• Building and Scaling Cloud Infrastructure: Design, build, and maintain our cloud infrastructure across multiple providers (including but not limited to GCP) and regions, ensuring scalability, reliability, and security.

• Building on Google Cloud: Contribute to the build-out and optimisation of our core "Engine" on Google Cloud Platform using Java and Kubernetes.
• Scaling our SaaS Release Tooling: Enhance and improve our multi-tenant, multi-region SaaS release and continuous deployment systems using Java, Golang, and Terraform at its core.
• Empowering Developers: Develop and maintain internal tooling using Java and Golang to improve developer experience and on-call efficiency.
• Automating Compliance and Security: Build automation solutions in Golang to enforce compliance and security controls across our platform.
• Driving Efficiency: Optimise the performance and reliability of our cloud environment with a strong focus on cost-effectiveness.
• Embracing Automation: Identify and implement automation opportunities to minimise manual processes across the platform lifecycle.
• Ensuring Security: Implement and maintain robust security practices to protect our platform and customer data.
• Championing Best Practices: Stay abreast of new technologies and industry changes, particularly in SRE practices and deployment automation, and share your knowledge with the team.
• Maintaining Compliance: Contribute to ensuring our platform adheres to relevant industry standards such as ISO27001, SOC2, and PCI-DSS.
• Collaborating and Learning: Work closely with cross-functional teams, share your expertise, and contribute to our vibrant learning culture.
• Aiming for Greatness: Strive for excellence in everything you do, maintaining a curious and inquisitive mindset.
• Documenting Solutions: Design and document scalable internal tooling clearly and comprehensively.
• Taking Ownership: Own features and improvements throughout their entire lifecycle.
• Participate in on-call: The option to join our on-call rota (not mandatory!) to deal with interesting technical issues and gain deep insights into our platform's behavior.

Your place within the team will depend on your individual strengths and interests.

We are generally open-minded when it comes to hiring and we care more about aptitude and attitude than specific experience or qualifications.

For this role, we are looking for some specific additional skills - if you prefer Java only roles be sure to check out our other Software Engineer roles.

What skills are essential

• Proven experience as a Site Reliability Engineer, DevOps Engineer, Platform Engineer or similar role.
• Strong proficiency in Golang.
• Hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Solid understanding and practical experience with Kubernetes.
• Experience with Terraform or other Infrastructure-as-Code tools.
• Deep understanding of SRE principles and practices, including monitoring, alerting, incident management, and capacity planning.
• A strong focus on automation and a passion for eliminating manual tasks.
• Experience with building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Knowledge of security best practices in cloud environments.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills.
• A proactive and continuous learning mindset.
• Ability to design and document technical solutions effectively.

What skills are desirable

• Experience in an additional programming language, particularly Java.
• Experience with other cloud providers, particularly AWS.
• Contributions to open-source projects.
• Experience with database technologies, particularly Postgres.
• Familiarity with observability and monitoring systems, and a solid understanding of database monitoring, analysis, disaster recovery, and performance tuning.
• Familiarity with compliance standards such as ISO27001, SOC2, and PCI-DSS is a plus.

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, Mr&Mrs 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. 

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 Engine by Starling and Starling Bank will collect your personal data for recruiting and related purposes. Our Privacy Notice explains what personal information we will process, where we will process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over our use of your personal information.