Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer

Full-Time 95000 - 130000 £ / year (est.) No working from home possible
Monzo Bank

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Join a dynamic team to build innovative banking solutions that make money work for everyone.
  • Company: Monzo, a forward-thinking bank revolutionising the financial landscape.
  • Benefits: Competitive salary, stock options, flexible working, and a £1,000 learning budget.
  • Other info: Diverse and inclusive culture with excellent career growth opportunities.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact in a collaborative environment while using cutting-edge technology.
  • Qualifications: Experience in backend development and a passion for problem-solving.

The predicted salary is between 95000 - 130000 £ per year.

We’re on a mission to make money work for everyone. We’re waving goodbye to the complicated and confusing ways of traditional banking. After starting as a prepaid card, our product offering has grown a lot in the last 10 years in the UK. As well as personal and business bank accounts, we offer joint accounts, accounts for 16‑17 year olds, a free kids account and credit cards in the UK, with more exciting things to come beyond. Our UK customers can also save, invest and combine their pensions with us. With our hot coral cards and get‑paid‑early feature, combined with financial education on social media and our award‑winning customer service, we have a long history of creating magical moments for our customers! We’re not about selling products – we want to solve problems and change lives through Monzo.

About Our Engineering Teams: We have around 400 engineers across Monzo who design and build our in‑house banking platform. We have big ambitions for the future, and technology plays a big role in creating a bank our customers want, so engineers at Monzo collaborate across disciplines to solve interesting challenges throughout the company. These range from the products our customers use every day to underlying infrastructure, security, payments and finance, customer operations, financial crime, and data, to name just a few areas. As a bank, there is scope for impact across a huge number of opportunities. We contribute to open source software as much as possible.

Your day-to-day: This role is all about collaborating with your team to make a difference to your customers. As a backend engineer you’ll work in a squad alongside other disciplines like product managers, marketers, user researchers, designers, mobile engineers, web engineers, data analysts, business analysts, writers and more! Together you'll build and support a particular part of Monzo. Our squads belong to our wider collectives (a word we use to describe self‑governing business units of ~100 people). They are: Core Banking, Business Banking, Wealth, Borrowing, Growth, Payments, Platform, Fincrime, Security & Expansion. All of our collectives are doing innovative work, many of which have machine learning and AI at the forefront – from fighting financial crime to building smarter financial tools – and you may have the opportunity to join a collective that gives you direct exposure to this exciting space.

How We Work: Our main tech hub is in London, but our engineers live everywhere in the UK— from Brighton to the Western Isles. We value meeting in person but there’s no pressure to come into the office, even if you're nearby. We believe you'll do your best work if you are where you want to be. If you live outside of London and we ask you to come into the office, Monzo will support you with the costs. Our offices are naturally social, especially Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, which happen to line up with our twice‑weekly Monzo lunches & treat Thursdays. Teams also schedule time together often for work and play – in or around the office, or online. Set up a work schedule that delivers impact and fits your life: At Monzo, we value connections, flexibility, and wellbeing. We keep our meetings during core hours to stay connected and believe in maintaining work/life balance. You’ll be empowered to manage your work in a way that suits you and your team, giving you the freedom for children drop‑offs and pick‑ups, walking your dog or adventurous cat, avoiding peak commuting times or gym slots, appointments, or supporting your family in an emergency.

You Should Apply If: you have strong experience working on the backend of a technology product; you want to be involved in building a product that you (and the people you know) use every day; you have a product mindset: you care about customer outcomes and you want to make data‑informed decisions; you’re comfortable working in a team that deals with ambiguity; you’re interested in distributed systems and writing resilient software; you have some experience with strongly‑typed languages (Go, Java, C, Scala etc.); you think you’d enjoy the kind of work we’re doing.

What You’ll Be Working On: We hire very technically agnostic so whilst we use the below technologies we do not expect prior knowledge, you will be fully supported in our organised onboarding to get up to speed in the below: Go to write our application code; Cassandra for most persistent data storage; Kafka for our asynchronous message queue; Kubernetes and Docker to schedule and run our services; Envoy Proxy for RPC; AWS for most of our production infrastructure and GCP for most of our data infrastructure; React for our public web apps and internal tools.

The Interview Process: Our interview process involves three main stages: Initial Call, Take home task or pair coding exercise, Final interview: including a system design and a behavioural interview. Our average process takes around 4 weeks but we will always work around your availability.

What’s In It For You: £95,000 - £130,000 base salary + stock options; We can help you relocate to the UK; We can sponsor visas. This role can be based in our London office, but we're open to distributed working within the UK (with ad‑hoc meetings in London). We offer flexible working hours and trust you to work enough hours to do your job well, at times that suit you and your team. Learning budget of £1,000 a year for books, training courses and conferences.

Equal opportunities for everyone: Diversity and inclusion are a priority for us and we’re making sure we have lots of support for all of our people to grow at Monzo. At Monzo, we’re embracing diversity by fostering an inclusive environment for all people to do the best work of their lives with us. This is integral to our mission of making money work for everyone.

Senior Backend Engineer employer: Monzo Bank

Monzo is an exceptional employer that prioritises flexibility, collaboration, and employee wellbeing, making it a fantastic place for Senior Backend Engineers to thrive. With a strong focus on innovation and diversity, employees are empowered to work in a way that suits their lifestyle while contributing to meaningful projects that impact customers' lives. The vibrant London tech hub offers a supportive work culture, ample growth opportunities, and a generous learning budget, ensuring that every team member can develop their skills and advance their career.

Monzo Bank

Contact Details:

Monzo Bank Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Senior Backend Engineer

Tip Number 1

Network like a pro! Reach out to current Monzo employees on LinkedIn or at tech meetups. Ask them about their experiences and any tips they might have for the interview process. Personal connections can give you an edge!

Tip Number 2

Prepare for the technical challenges! Brush up on your backend skills, especially in Go or other strongly-typed languages. Practise coding problems and system design scenarios to show off your problem-solving abilities during the interviews.

Tip Number 3

Show your passion for the product! During interviews, share how you’ve used similar products or how you’d improve them. This demonstrates that you care about customer outcomes and are genuinely interested in what Monzo is doing.

Tip Number 4

Don’t hesitate to apply! Even if you don’t tick every box, if you’re excited about the role and eager to learn, we want to hear from you. Head over to our website and drop your application – we’re always looking for talented engineers!

We think you need these skills to ace Senior Backend Engineer

Backend Development
Distributed Systems
Resilient Software Design
Strongly-Typed Languages (Go, Java, C, Scala)
Data-Informed Decision Making
Collaboration
Problem-Solving

Some tips for your application 🫡

Be Yourself:When you're writing your application, let your personality shine through! We want to get to know the real you, so don’t be afraid to share your unique experiences and perspectives.

Tailor Your Application:Make sure to customise your application for the Senior Backend Engineer role. Highlight your relevant skills and experiences that align with what we’re looking for, especially around backend technologies and teamwork.

Show Your Passion:We love seeing candidates who are genuinely excited about what we do at Monzo. Share why you’re interested in this role and how you can contribute to our mission of making money work for everyone!

Apply Through Our Website:For the best chance of getting noticed, make sure to apply directly through our website. It’s the easiest way for us to keep track of your application and get back to you quickly!

How to prepare for a job interview at Monzo Bank

Know Your Tech Stack

Familiarise yourself with the technologies mentioned in the job description, especially Go, Cassandra, and Kubernetes. Brush up on your knowledge of distributed systems and resilient software design, as these are key areas for a Senior Backend Engineer.

Show Your Problem-Solving Skills

Prepare to discuss how you've tackled complex challenges in previous roles. Think about specific examples where you made data-informed decisions that positively impacted customer outcomes. This aligns perfectly with Monzo's mission to solve problems and change lives.

Embrace Collaboration

Since you'll be working closely with various disciplines, be ready to demonstrate your teamwork skills. Share experiences where you collaborated with product managers, designers, or other engineers to deliver successful projects. Highlight your ability to thrive in an ambiguous environment.

Ask Insightful Questions

Prepare thoughtful questions about Monzo's engineering culture, ongoing projects, and future ambitions. This shows your genuine interest in the role and helps you assess if the company is the right fit for you. Plus, it’s a great way to engage with your interviewers!