Staff Software Engineer - Database Platform - Engine by Starling in Southampton

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.

At Engine, we take the battle-tested banking technology pioneered by Starling Bank and re-engineer it for the global SaaS market. We currently manage multiple clients on a SaaS basis, and as our client list grows, so does the complexity of our infrastructure.

The Mission: Database Manager & Replication Manager

We don’t believe in manual intervention. While our DBAs take over all responsibility of our PostgreSQL estate, our mission is to build the software layer that makes the "human-in-the-loop" obsolete and empower our technology teams to operate their own databases. We are building the next generation of tooling to manage a massive, multi-tenant estate where automation is the only way to scale. We are forming a new team (hiring for various levels of experience, from Senior through to Principal) to lead a multi-year roadmap focused on the development and evolution of two critical proprietary products:

• Database Manager: Our central orchestration platform and control plane. It integrates into our internal developer portal to handle ad-hoc maintenance - such as running VACUUMs, managing credential rotation, and terminating slow queries through a clean UI, ensuring no one ever needs direct access to a production database instance.
• Replication Manager: Our bespoke logical replication service. This system orchestrates and monitors data streaming, allowing us to perform major version upgrades and cross-tenant migrations with only seconds of downtime. We are solving difficult problems at scale, including the exploration of cloud native solutions to allow for a truly cross-cloud database infrastructure.

Your goal is to ensure that, as we onboard more global clients, our database infrastructure remains stable, resilient, and autonomous.

What you’ll get to do

• Scale for Multi-Tenancy: Design and develop Java-based services within Database Manager to manage an ever-growing number of isolated database estates for our SaaS clients.
• Evolve Replication Manager: Enhance our data streaming orchestration to ensure "Zero-Downtime" transitions and migrations are seamless across a global footprint.
• Architect Cross-Cloud Portability: Work with cloud native solutions to build a database layer that is cloud-agnostic, allowing Engine to deploy reliably across different providers.
• Eliminate Manual Toil: Build high-level abstractions for complex maintenance tasks, ensuring the system proactively heals and maintains itself.
• Execute a Multi-Year Roadmap: Contribute to the long-term technical strategy of how Engine handles mission-critical data at a global scale. Whether it’s as people lead or tech lead, as a Staff Engineer you will be a spearhead in the upwards trajectory of the team. Don’t worry, as a People Lead you’ll still be contributing heavily to the exciting technical work.

What we’re looking for

• A Software Engineer First: You have deep expertise in Java working with JDBC, and enjoy building robust, testable, and maintainable backend services. You will be well versed in relational modelling and crafting clean DDL.
• Distributed Systems Enthusiast: You are excited by the challenge of "multi-everything"- multi-tenant, multi-region, and multi-cloud.
• PostgreSQL & Kubernetes Interest: You understand (or want to learn) the internals of Postgres and how to run it natively on Kubernetes.
• Systems Thinker: You have a natural "reluctance for manual implementation" and believe that infrastructure should be managed via code and APIs.
• A Security Mindset: Security is paramount when it comes to the storage and handling of data - we do not allow DBAs or engineers access to production data.

Why join Engine?

This is a rare opportunity to sit at the intersection of Software Engineering and Database Internals. You aren’t just a user of the cloud; you are building the engine that makes the cloud work for the next generation of global banking. With multiple clients already live and a significant roadmap ahead, the impact of your code will be felt by millions of customers worldwide. 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.