We launched our mobile apps in the App Store and Google Play Store in May, and since then our vibrant community of software developers, iOS and Android developers, and those just interested in fintech have wanted to know more about how we built a bank from scratch and what day-to-day life is like at Starling HQ. In comes the Starling Developer Podcast, created by our engineering team exploring how we build and run a mobile only bank — which we’re launching today.
In the series of six podcasts, we’ll talk about the technical aspects of a bank that’s run in the cloud and built using an agile development process. We’ll also look at iPhone and Android app development, the cloud-based server code, and connections from our bank to the outside world.
Hosted by Lead Engineer Jason Maude, the series features just some of the Starling team dedicated to making banking better, including: CTO Greg Hawkins, CIO John Mountain, Director of Technology Steve Newson, Head of Information Simon Waring, CPO Megan Caywood, Head of APIs Sam Everington, Starling Product Director Sarah Guha, Program Manager Mariam Ogunbambi, and Software Developer Nelson Djalo.
Make sure you tune in or download every Wednesday. Go to iTunes.
Episode Guide
Episode 1 – Reliability of banking services (24th August)
We kick off the series with a discussion about how we ensure technical reliability and availability of service to our banking customers.
Episode 2 – Connecting to our open APIs (31st August)
This week’s episode is around the APIs that Starling Bank has made available to the wider world. Why did we decide to open up our banking platform to allow other apps to connect to it?
Episode 3 – Security of cloud-based banking (7th September)
In this episode we discuss the security threats that a cloud-based bank can face. Are they different to the security threats faced by traditional banks, or are the old threats still present?
Episode 4 – Scaling our software architecture and infrastructure for volume (14th September)
Thinking big: we chat how we plan to scale the bank from 1,000 users to 1,000,000 and beyond.
Episode 5 – Connecting to the global banking software framework (21st September)
This week we discuss the existing UK and global banking framework and how we connect the back-end code to it.
Episode 6 – Agile development in a banking environment (28th September)
We talk about what happens when a development environment that wants to implement agile and lean practices meets a traditional and conservative sector such as banking.
