Cloud Security Engineer (Automation & Tooling) - Engine by Starling - London

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, the technology that was built to power Starling, and two years ago we split out as a separate business. 

Starling 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.

As a company, everyone is expected to roll up their sleeves to help deliver great outcomes for our clients. We are an engineering led company and we’re looking for people who are will be excited by the potential for Engine’s technology to transform banking in different markets around the world. 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 our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person.

About the role:

As a Cloud Security Engineer at Engine, you will be a hands-on builder, responsible for engineering and automating the security of our core platform. Your primary mission is to treat security as an engineering discipline, creating robust, scalable, and automated solutions to protect our cloud infrastructure and development lifecycle. You will spend your time writing code (Go, Python), defining secure infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), and building the tooling that ensures our platform is secure by design and compliant by default. This is a role for an engineer who loves to build, automate, and solve complex security problems through code.

You’ll be working on projects covering identity and access management, cloud and network security, vulnerability management, security monitoring, security hardening, compliance reviews, and more. It’s a very varied role with lots of close interaction with the infrastructure, security engineering, cross cutting and compliance teams.

Engine by Starling engineers are excited about helping us deliver new features, regardless of what their primary tech stack may be. Hear from the team in our latest Blog or our case studies with Women in Tech .

Primarily, we are looking for an experienced Cloud Security Engineer to join our growing Security Engineering team, but we are also keen to talk to talented Cloud Engineers who possess strong programming skills and a genuine desire to apply their knowledge to solving security challenges. In this role, you will work closely with the GRC team and the various Engine Technology teams to make sure security is at the heart of all our technical processes. Your place within the team will depend on your individual strengths and interests.

This role will cover a wide array of security areas across our multi-tenant SaaS cloud environments and internal infrastructure and will require a skilled individual to spearhead efforts in fortifying both infrastructure and application platforms, against potential threats.

What you’ll get to do?

• Design, build, and maintain security automation and tooling to enforce security controls and simplify compliance (e.g., automating evidence collection for frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, or PCI DSS)
• Build, manage, and automate identity and access management controls to ensure secure access to our cloud platforms and applications
• Write and review Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform) to securely configure our AWS and GCP environments
• Secure our CI/CD pipelines by implementing and interpreting results from SAST/DAST/SCA tools and ensuring the integrity of our software supply chain
• Develop and maintain preventative and detective security controls within our cloud environments, responding to and automating the remediation of security alerts
• Implement and automate technical controls based on the findings from security assessments, audits, and architecture reviews
• Engineer solutions to secure our Kubernetes environments, focusing on RBAC, network policies, and runtime security
• Collaborate with engineering teams to implement security best practices and provide hands-on support for remediation efforts

• Contribute to incident response efforts, including the investigation, remediation, and post-mortem analysis of security breaches

Requirements

What skills are essential:

• Strong, demonstrable hands-on experience in a software or infrastructure engineering role
• A genuine passion for security, demonstrated by a proactive desire to learn about emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and best practices
• Proficiency in at least one programming language, with a strong preference for Go, followed by Python
• A mature understanding of cloud security architecture, and a deep, practical hands-on experience securing core infrastructure and services within AWS or GCP
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code, specifically Terraform, for managing cloud environments
• An aptitude for building tools and automating workflows to solve complex problems
• A practical understanding of how to integrate security into the software development lifecycle
• Experience securing containerised environments (Kubernetes) and CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, TeamCity)
• Strong scripting skills in Bash

What skills are desirable, but not essential:

• Proven experience creating custom tools or scripts specifically to solve security challenges
• You have an in-depth knowledge of security principles, technologies, best practices and threat detection and mitigation strategies
• A deep understanding of security principles, common attack vectors (OWASP Top 10, MITRE ATT&CK), and the threat landscape
• The ability to identify potential threats, attack vectors, and vulnerabilities in systems and applications
• Experience in automating security controls for compliance frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, or PCI DSS.
• Expertise in Kubernetes, securing clusters and meshes (Cilium is preferable), networking best practices and RBAC implementation (CKA, CKS qualifications are a plus)
• Container security knowledge including container image provenance (e.g. Sigstore, Notary) with an in-depth knowledge of container runtimes
• Strong understanding of network protocols & practices, firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems and WAFs
• Understanding of integrating security into the software development lifecycle
• Experience in Cryptography management & enhancements
• Experience configuring and utilising cloud-native security logging, monitoring, and detection services
• Experience performing secure code reviews and security approvals including the use of static and dynamic application security testing (SAST/DAST) tools
• Relevant security certifications such as AWS Security Specialist or GCP Professional Cloud Security Engineer

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 our Staff Security Engineer - ~45 minutes
• Take home technical task to be discussed in the next interview
• Technical interview with some of our Security Engineer team members - ~1.5 hours
• Final interview with our CTO / deputy CTO ~45 minutes

Benefits

• 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 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.