Senior Cloud Security Engineer (GCP) - Engine by Starling

📋 Job Overview

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 Bank, and a year 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. The Engine 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.

🏢 About Engine by Starling

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 Role

As a Security Engineer at Engine, you'll be working on helping to keep our infrastructure secure and compliant and our staff safe and productive. 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.

✅ Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with stakeholders to define our Google Cloud security architecture (cloud identity, runtime security, security posture)
• Design, document, build and maintain a secure and scalable infrastructure on GCP using Infrastructure as Code
• Be part of the team responsible for safeguarding our systems, applications and data by ensuring secure user access, authentication and authorisation mechanisms are in place
• Engineer and automate technical controls within GCP to ensure and demonstrate continuous compliance with stringent standards such as PCI DSS and 3DS
• Drive security infrastructure deployments across our growing environments
• Perform regular security assessments, audits, threat modelling and architecture design reviews to identify risks and vulnerabilities, triage found risks, identify improvements appropriately and design controls to implement as corrective actions
• Lead incident response efforts, including investigation and remediation of security breaches
• Support our internal security awareness and training programs, advocating the DevSecOps mindset that we have created across our technology teams

📌 Required Qualifications

• Mature understanding of cloud security architecture, with deep expertise in GCP and a proven track record
• Experience creating a GCP landing zone, configuring services such as organisation policies and VPC Service Controls
• A deep understanding of GCP IAM and its limitations
• Experience with service-oriented architecture using containers, distributed systems and immutable infrastructure on GCP (including GKE, Compute Engine, Shared VPC and Cloud SQL)
• Expertise in Kubernetes, securing clusters (GKE) and meshes (Cilium is preferable), networking best practices and RBAC implementation (CKA, CKS qualifications are a plus)
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code and infrastructure provisioning tools, particularly Terraform
• Experience configuring GCP-native security posture and threat management with Security Command Center
• Experience securing the software supply chain with Binary Authorization, Artifact Registry and Artifact Analysis
• Experience with key and secret management on GCP — Cloud KMS, Cloud External Key Manager (EKM) and Secret Manager — including cryptographic key ceremonies
• Experience with Workload Identity and Workload Identity Federation for keyless authentication of workloads and CI/CD
• Experience configuring and utilising cloud-native security logging, monitoring and detection services
• Strong programming skills — in security we write our own scripts for automation in Python, Go and other languages while contributing to open-source tools so we can utilise them
• In-depth knowledge of security principles, technologies, best practices, and threat detection and mitigation strategies
• Knowledge of common attack vectors and methodologies (OWASP Top 10, MITRE ATT&CK Framework and social engineering tactics)
• The ability to identify potential threats, attack vectors and vulnerabilities in systems and applications
• The ability to document security requirements from various stakeholders
• Excellent problem-solving, communication and active listening skills with an innate passion for security
• The ability to identify security gaps and create solutions to minimise risk and impact to us
• A proactive approach to staying updated with the latest security threats, vulnerabilities and mitigation techniques
• Thorough understanding of the incident response process (preparation, identification, containment, eradication, recovery, lessons learned)

⭐ Desirable Experience

• In-depth knowledge of network security, including core routing and switching concepts (TCP/IP, BGP, VPNs), security controls (firewalls, WAFs, IDS/IPS), and practical experience designing hybrid connectivity between GCP and on-premise environments
• Experience with data-residency and regulated-workload controls such as Assured Workloads and Access Transparency, relevant to deploying per-market for different banks' regulators
• Hands-on experience taking a company through security and compliance frameworks like NIST, SOC 2, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS
• Experience automating security controls and compliance checks against standards and frameworks including SOC 2, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS / 3DS
• Container security knowledge including container image provenance (e.g. Sigstore, Notary) with an in-depth knowledge of container runtimes, and an understanding of integrating security into the software development lifecycle
• Experience performing secure code reviews and security approvals, including the use of static and dynamic application security testing (SAST / DAST) tools
• Experience in cryptography management and enhancements
• Relevant security certifications such as ISC2 CC, CISSP, CCSP, CISM, AWS Security Specialty or GCP Professional Cloud Security Engineer

🎁 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

🛂 Visa & Eligibility

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.