We’re on a mission to radically reshape banking – and that starts with our brilliant team. We know that our bank is only as good as the people who build it. From customer support and engineering to marketing and business development, we’re proud to bring together people of all backgrounds and experiences who love working together to solve problems.
Creativity and collaboration
We’re growing fast – and no two days here at Starling are quite the same. We care about getting stuff done, not process, and our culture is decidedly entrepreneurial in spirit (you’ll be encouraged to pitch your ideas, however big or bold!). It’s a fast-paced, exciting and creative place to work where there’s plenty of collaboration and ownership of your own projects.
As you’d expect from a technology company, we’ll make sure you have all the tools you need to get your job done – and that they’re the very best in the business. We work on MacBooks, Mac minis, Chromebooks, and you’ll receive anything else you might need on request.
Lots of companies talk about transparency – but it’s something we really care about. We communicate and collaborate through Slack, including a channel dedicated to updates from our founder Anne and the leadership team.
It’s important to us there’s more to life here than just work, so get to know your colleagues at socials, cheese & wine nights or learning lunches. Enjoy fresh fruit and coffee every day, free breakfasts and Perkbox, through which we offer the Cycle to Work scheme and salary-sacrificed gym memberships. We also offer private health insurance for all employees.
We offer 33 days holiday (including public hols), plus an extra day on your birthday; you also get 16 hours of paid leave a year to do voluntary work.
No boundaries; one team. We’re a bunch of techies, artists, marketers, customer advocates and supporters, UX specialists, ops people, and the people that do the all important risk, compliance and finance stuff.
Starling Bank is an award-winning and fully-licensed bank built to give people a fairer, smarter and more human alternative to the banks of the past. We offer four different account types – personal, business, joint and euro, plus a child card. Pairing this with a pioneering payment services proposition for businesses, Starling’s world-class tech reimagines banking for life today, putting the tools people need to feel good about money in the palm of their hand.
All of Starling’s accounts are protected up to £85,000 by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Want to find out how to use Starling Bank? Walk this way.
Starling was founded in 2014 by industry-leading banker Anne Boden, who recognised how technology could transform the way people manage their money and serve customers in a way that traditional banks hadn’t. We’ve since raised £363 million in backing and were voted Best British Bank three years running. Our customers also rate us Excellent on Trustpilot.
Starling has opened more than 2 million customer accounts with over £3.6 billion in deposits.
I remember seeing the volunteering hours in the job description and thinking it was something I really wanted to do.
I joined Starling in September 2020. In 2021 I spent two days volunteering for RORO (Ride Out Ride On), a Bristol-based charity that helps people with mobility-impacting factors, such as a disability or long term health conditions, enjoy the freedom and fun of cycling.
They have adapted bikes, where you have one volunteer rider at the back and the client riding at the front. A bit like a tandem but more comfortable. The steering is controlled from the rear and the client can add power through the pedals if they want.
For both days, which were a month apart, I cycled with a woman who had a horse riding accident that impacted her physical mobility and heightened her anxiety. We went down the Bristol footpath to Bath and had a whole day out.
Being able to share my love of cycling with someone who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do that was fantastic. I also had a conversation with someone I otherwise wouldn’t have crossed paths with.
I think coding is as essential as basic Maths and English – it’s such a useful skill.
I run the Coding Club at my children’s primary school near Exeter. This involves guiding around ten children between the ages of 8-10. I use my Starling volunteering hours to contribute to this commitment.
We follow tutorials and the kids can make their own games on Scratch. Scratch is a popular coding resource for kids. One kid made a game that ran over three screens and involved three different levels, which for a 10-year-old isn’t bad.
I also run ‘follow alongs’, where I will do something and the children copy my code. We made a rock, paper, scissors game. The kids had to turn elements of the game into code. For example, if rock and paper were combined, paper won.
I joined Starling in November 2020 and previously worked in database administration for the NHS.
Outside of work, I have created an app that plays different sounds in the background, for example birdsong or people at a café. My advice for anyone keen to learn to code is: pick something and build it – tutorials will only get you so far.
I joined Starling in October 2021 and have been using my Starling volunteering hours to contribute to my commitments as Chair of Governors for a secondary school in Northamptonshire.
The school is in Corby, one of the most deprived towns in the country, and has some of the best results among comprehensive schools. However it isn’t all about exam results, the ethos is about supporting all students to become good rounded human beings and giving everyone the opportunity to excel.
As Chair of Governors I spend time with the Headteacher of the school and the Senior Leadership Team. I am available as a sounding board, an escalation point and as someone to have a chat with. Along with the other Governors, I go into the school once a quarter for a half day and observe lessons or attend assemblies.
The volunteering hours from Starling allow me to accommodate these sessions in my working day, which is great.
I began a six-month placement with Starling in January 2022 following a period of time away from the market to focus on my family.
As a Credit Portfolio Manager, I help Starling acquire and manage its asset portfolios. I have 16 years experience in fixed income, structured credit and portfolio management.
My interest in Starling began when I did a 10-week FinTech programme, run by Saïd Business School (Oxford University). I really enjoyed updating my knowledge.
When I saw the Returner programme at Starling, I thought it would be a great fit given my interest in FinTech and also as an advocate of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), which seems to be part of the Starling DNA. For example, Starling does not send out paper statements and provides debit cards made from recycled plastic.
I had a view of Starling being really agile and that’s certainly been borne out in the recruitment process, and in the weeks since I’ve joined. I’m especially enjoying how quickly things move. Everyone has been tremendously welcoming and I’ve been very impressed by the technology, which enables us to work more collaboratively.
I have both a mentor and a buddy to provide ongoing support. Starling also organises a number of coaching sessions with Women Returners, which are particularly helpful when transitioning back to a full-time role. I greatly appreciate the peer support from others in the programme.
As a Customer Journey Lead, I help create, develop and define new and existing processes for customers. One of my focuses will be the specialist support offered to customers with mental or physical health conditions, or customers that have experienced a sudden change, such as redundancy.
I always aim to give the best service and with my energy and experience in financial services, I thought I could add value and positively help Starling in its journey to making banking better for everyone.
I came across Starling’s partnership with Women Returners just one day before the application deadline. Research shows that women can be reluctant to apply for a role if they don’t meet all the criteria and I definitely fit into that category. The Starling programme appealed because it acknowledged this and encouraged people excited by the opportunity to get in touch.
I submitted my application and was offered a placement within the Operations team.
People across the company have made time to welcome me and introduce me to what the bank is doing and what the priorities are. I’ve been asking lots of questions and the encouragement I’ve received has been amazing.
What’s really interesting about Starling is that we build everything from scratch. We create direct integrations with payment systems like Faster Payments, which means that other FinTechs can cut their engineering costs.
I started at Starling’s London office in 2019.
We still have the culture of a start-up. We have autonomy, there aren’t a lot of processes and when something doesn’t work, there isn’t a culture of blame. Our approach is to fix it, learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I studied Computer Science at university after spending a year at college doing IT. I liked that it wouldn’t be tied to one specific company. It’s almost like a trade, something I can take with me wherever I go.
The best part of working at Starling is the way everyone works together. I like that we’re a cross-functional team made up of platform engineers, app engineers and designers. We collaborate in shaping the features we’re working on and putting them through all the testing phases. This collective way of working feels very effective.
I previously worked on apps in the gaming industry. As a team leader there, I didn’t get many opportunities to be hands-on. I’m an engineer at my core, which is what motivated me to start looking elsewhere.
I joined Starling in May 2020, two months into the national lockdown. As a working parent, I was anxious about how things would work with my kids being home-schooled. But I got really amazing support on flexible working from my manager and team leads. They checked that things were okay at home and made sure I wasn’t juggling too much. When you go through tough times and get that support – that’s what shows how supportive and empathetic the culture is.
I first learned to code through my degree in Electronic Engineering, but have mainly taught myself or learned on the job. During the interview process for Starling, I found that working on both iOS and Android was encouraged, which I was really interested in.
Since joining, I’ve worked on both our iOS and Android apps, mainly as part of the team designing and improving the process of applying for a new Starling account.
When I decided to study Astronomy, I never imagined I’d end up working for a bank, but at Starling it doesn’t feel like you’re working at a bank.
As a tech company, we make small changes to production every day. We’re also given a lot of breathing space and flexibility. We can explore different approaches and fail some of the time, before we arrive at a solution. When I left academia, I thought I would lose that freedom. But with Starling, I haven’t.
I did my PhD on the formation of galaxies, and then went on to work as a data scientist and developer for a company focused on preventing copyright infringement. I joined Starling’s data science team in 2020, based in the Cardiff office.
Our team helps the bank make better data-driven decisions. For example, with cheque imaging, we use machine learning to match the amount handwritten on the cheque with the details the customer has typed.
When you work in data at Starling, you’re really empowered.
We make sure that people from the data team are actively involved in discussions about the problems that need solving. It means that we can understand the nuance of what’s needed.
I joined Starling in 2018 as Head of Data Science, after hearing Starling’s CEO and founder Anne Boden on the radio. I myself was inspired by the fact that Anne is a Welsh woman in technology who wanted to inspire other women in technology and the FinTech space. I wrote her a letter. And the rest is history. Previously I worked in the insurance industry.
At Starling, I have helped to develop a number of app features, as well as systems that simplify processes for staff. Some of my favourite implementations have been really customer-focused. I talk often about our in-app cheque deposit feature. I love this product because it has data science at its heart and it’s an example of us delivering something truly innovative that customers need. We’re using technology and data for the good of the customer.
It’s an amazing place to work.
There are so many bright people in the team I talk to and learn from and there are opportunities to answer some of the most pressing questions within the bank. No day is the same, which is what makes it fun, and everyone has lots of autonomy.
I joined Starling’s London office in 2021, having previously worked for another bank. I wanted to work for an organisation that had technology at its core and where I felt like my work had an impact.
I was introduced to data science through a placement I did with the Welsh Government as part of my Masters in Statistics. I love how I can feed my curiosity as to why something happens in a certain way.
Before joining Starling in 2021, I worked as a researcher in astrophysics, focusing on gravitational waves.
I completed my PhD in Cardiff in 2016, where I later became a researcher. I then joined Starling’s Cardiff office as a Data Scientist.
I wanted to see what life was like outside of academia and I knew I wanted to do something in data science because it’s a way that I can use my skills to hopefully make the world a better place. Banking is something that everyone interacts with and something where there are lots of interesting problems to solve.
The best part of my job is the variety of tasks I am asked to complete and the trust that’s placed in me. Starling gives me the freedom to explore ideas.
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