Good challenges but frequent miscommunication from leadership - Engineering Manager ClearBank Employee Review

The tech stack was great, however the main architect who designed everything left the company - due to too much politics. Design was almost state-of-the-art, product was mature. However there was a lot of copy-pasted code. Here is the tech stack: C# and .NET Framework / .NET Core Microservices Architecture Docker / Kubernetes Azure Cloud Services Event Sourcing, CQRS, Event-Driven Architecture Azure Event Hub or Kafka SQL Server Azure Cosmos DB / NoSQL Databases REST / SOAP APIs Git and CI/CD Pipelines Angular Elastic Stack

A. Team members were publishing daily memes and jokes on the MSteams, trying to get « socially accepted » coz there was not really much code to be changed, however financial product was a « cow to be milked » B. they were not paying DEVS enough, C. one dev suggested they can use my salary to pay for an azure pipeline D. the management told the team exactly before Christmas Ève that they have a new client and onboarding needs to be around new year E. No women hired, F. Waiting for a PR approval takes forever depending on who you know

ClearBank is a true reflection of how FinTech organisations are meant to operate. The business is ambitious and fast paced, balancing a need for strong regulatory compliance with technological innovation. The environment is a positive one, where egos are generally few and far between. Teams are encouraged to be collaborative and ideas are typically well received - allowing people to contribute towards business goals which are openly tracked through an OKR framework on a quarterly basis. The people are mostly approachable and supportive, and whilst admittedly the pace is faster than in many larger more established banks (perhaps not suiting everyone), the opportunities to learn and develop are significant. For those seeking the ability to make an impact, ClearBank offers exactly this opportunity. ClearBank has recently relocated to a new office in the City of London, which offers a great space to interact with colleagues across functions. The new office is able to accommodate about 150 people and fits well with the flexible approach offered to all staff. Overall I would say that ClearBank is a really positive place to work where people are encouraged to collaborate and problem solve, offering a great opportunity to drive real outcomes that support many of the largest FinTechs in the UK and Europe.

ClearBank is heading through a number of “scale-up challenges” - and whilst this is a privileged position in many respects, it does necessitate some changes in approach. This is generally being well managed by the business, but some people may find the pace of change difficult.