Staff Backend Engineer

Mission to Make Money Work for Everyone

Monzo is on a mission to simplify banking, moving away from traditional complexities. Over the last decade in the UK, our product offering has expanded significantly, including personal and business bank accounts, joint accounts, accounts for 16-17 year olds, a free kids account, and credit cards. We also enable UK customers to save, invest, and combine their pensions with us, with more innovations on the horizon.

Known for our distinctive hot coral cards and early payment features, complemented by financial education and award-winning customer service, we consistently create exceptional customer experiences. Our focus is on solving problems and enhancing lives through Monzo, not merely selling products.

This Staff Backend Engineer role is based in London or remotely across the UK, offering a salary of £115,000 - £150,000 plus benefits within our Technology - Engineering division.

About Our Engineering Teams

Our engineering team comprises approximately 300 individuals within a total workforce of around 2,500, with ambitious goals for future growth. We tackle numerous interesting challenges and support engineers in specializing or moving between teams as preferred. As an engineer at Monzo, you will have direct collaboration opportunities across the entire company, and our regular knowledge-sharing sessions provide extensive learning, from banking operations to effective communication. We actively contribute to open-source software, and our blog offers further insights into our work.

What You’ll Be Working On

We leverage a robust set of tools and technologies for our operations:

• Go: Primary language for application development.
• Cassandra: Used for most persistent data storage needs.
• Kafka: Powers our asynchronous message queue.
• Envoy Proxy: Facilitates RPC communication.
• Kubernetes and Docker: Orchestrate and run our services.
• AWS: Forms the backbone of most of our infrastructure.
• React: Utilized for internal web dashboards.

Additionally, we maintain two physical data center sites with direct cable connections to various third parties.

Your Day-to-Day as a Staff Backend Engineer

This role emphasizes cross-disciplinary collaboration to test hypotheses and deliver meaningful customer impact. As a product backend engineer, you will join a squad composed of product managers, marketers, user researchers, designers, mobile engineers, web engineers, data analysts, business analysts, writers, and more. Together, you will build and support a specific segment of Monzo's platform. Our squads are part of larger 'collectives' – self-governing business units of around 100 people. These include Core Banking, Business Banking, Wealth, Borrowing, Growth, Payments, Platform, Fincrime, Security & Expansion. Many collectives are at the forefront of machine learning and AI, from combating financial crime to developing smarter financial tools, offering potential exposure to these exciting areas.

We welcome backend engineers from diverse backgrounds. A passion for learning is key, and we do not require formal qualifications or specific degrees for any of our engineering positions.

How We Work

Locations & Flexible Working: Our primary tech hub is in London, but our engineers are distributed across the entire UK. While in-person meetings are valued, there is no obligation to work from the office, even if you are local. We believe you achieve your best work in your preferred environment. For those living outside London, Monzo covers costs for any requested office visits.

Our offices are vibrant, particularly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, coinciding with our bi-weekly Monzo lunches and 'treat Thursdays'. Teams also frequently organize work and social gatherings, both in and out of the office, or online.

Set up a Work Schedule That Delivers Impact and Fits Your Life: Monzo prioritizes connection, flexibility, and wellbeing. Meetings are scheduled during core hours to maintain connectivity while respecting work-life balance. You are empowered to manage your work schedule to suit you and your team, allowing flexibility for personal commitments like childcare, pet care, avoiding peak commute times, appointments, or family emergencies.

Work the way that works for you with Monzo!

Who Should Apply

You should apply if you have:

• Strong experience in backend development for a technology product.
• A desire to build products that you and others use daily.
• A product mindset, focusing on customer outcomes and data-informed decisions.
• Comfort working within ambiguous team environments.
• An interest in distributed systems and building resilient software.
• Experience with strongly-typed languages such as Go, Java, C, or Scala.
• An enthusiasm for the type of work Monzo is doing.

We are currently looking for L60 Engineers. Our Engineering Progression Framework provides more details. We are also hiring for L40 & L50, and our interview process will determine your appropriate leveling.

The Interview Process

Our interview process typically involves three main stages:

• Initial Call
• Take-home task or pair coding exercise
• Final interview, including a system design and a behavioral interview

The average process takes approximately 2-3 weeks, and we accommodate your availability. A detailed blog post by one of our engineers offers additional insights and tips for this process.

What’s In It For You

• Base Salary: £115,000 - £150,000
• Stock Options: Included with your compensation.
• Relocation: Assistance available for relocating to the UK.
• Visa Sponsorship: Provided for eligible candidates.
• Location Flexibility: Based in our London office or remotely across the UK, with ad hoc meetings in London.
• Flexible Working Hours: We trust you to manage your hours effectively.
• Learning Budget: £1,000 annually for books, training, and conferences.

We offer many more benefits; please see our full list. This job posting has no closing date as we are continuously hiring for Staff Backend Engineers.

Equal Opportunities for Everyone

Diversity and inclusion are fundamental priorities at Monzo. We actively support the growth of all our people by fostering an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive. This commitment is central to our mission of making money work for everyone. Further details can be found in our blog, 2024 Diversity and Inclusion Report, and 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report.

Monzo is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants are considered without regard to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, veteran, neurodiversity, or disability status. Please use your preferred name when applying; full or birth names are not required at the application stage.

Key skills/competency

• Backend Development
• Go Programming Language
• Distributed Systems
• Cassandra
• Kafka
• Kubernetes
• AWS
• Microservices
• System Design
• Product Mindset