Staff Engineer, Cleo AI
Ruby
+ Equity
More information about location
AI personal finance assistant
Open for applications
AI personal finance assistant
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
+ Equity
More information about location
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To change the world’s relationship with money.
Role
Who you are
- You’re excited by the opportunity to own and influence technical direction at a pillar level
- You’ve operated at senior/staff level across multiple teams or complex domains
- You bring strong technical judgment and think in long-term, scalable solutions
- You’re comfortable leading without authority and aligning teams around a shared direction
- You have a track record of building systems and practices used beyond your immediate team
- You enjoy mentoring and raising the bar for others
- You have strong, hands-on experience with Ruby on Rails (essential)
What the job involves
- Acting as a Staff IC across a pillar, shaping technical direction and driving delivery across multiple squads
- Partnering with senior peers to define architecture and lead complex, high-impact initiatives
- Bringing teams together to ship ambitious product work that improves users’ financial health
- Building shared systems, patterns, and tooling that raise the bar across engineering
- Staying hands-on in our Ruby on Rails monolith — designing APIs, data models, and scalable services
- Anticipating risks and opportunities early, influencing plans and technical strategy
- Mentoring engineers and TLs, growing the next generation of technical leaders
- Cleo is built as a Ruby on Rails monolith with a single React Native app frontend, utilising TypeScript. We also leverage Python for machine learning services and PostgreSQL for our database, all hosted on AWS. Our CI/CD pipeline is fully automated, with production deployments happening on every merge via Kubernetes
- Our backend engineers deploy multiple times a week, and we release our frontend app to Google and Apple for review at least once a week
- While we take a pragmatic approach, we place a strong emphasis on quality. Our code is peer-reviewed, and we maintain automated testing using Minitest and CircleCI
- We're also actively working towards a more modular architecture, focusing on separating concerns to achieve all the benefits of microservices within a monolith, while progressively refactoring our code as we build new features. Everyone in the engineering team contributes to driving our technical strategy, voices & ideas from all levels are valued: we are all owners at Cleo
Salary benchmarks
Our take
People are increasingly not satisfied with the products being offered by traditional banks, which have proven slow to react to the needs of younger consumers who expect more from their everyday experiences.
Cleo was one of the first companies to make great use of chatbots that sit within Facebook's messenger app. This chatbot-first approach and Gen Z user base have given it strong virality. It now has millions of registered users, 99% of which are based in the US, leading to a decision to take a year break from the UK market to focus on its US Gen Z customers. And after a successful year in the US its now eyeing up a return to the UK.
Its Series C funding will help the company to double down in the US, where it will make a significant increase in employee headcount, and enable Cleo to maintain and expand its service during an economic downturn.
Financial advice delivered via bots is a crowded space, so Cleo benefits from having a strong brand presence. It has gone for very bold, fun, Gen Z-focused messaging which helps it to stand out from competitors such as Emma, Plum, and Chip.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Jun 2022
$80m
SERIES C
Dec 2020
$44m
SERIES B
Total funding: $137.7m
Company benefits
- Meaningful equity with early exercise, plus top-ups on promotion
- Primary caregiver: 18 weeks at full pay / Secondary caregiver: 6 weeks full pay, 6 weeks half pay (dependant on tenure)
- Paid 1-month sabbatical every 4 years
- Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
- Learning & development training platform
- Mental health support via Spill
- Company-wide performance reviews every 4 months
- We’ll cover your OpenAI or Claude subscription
- Pension match up to 6% 🇬🇧
- Life assurance 🇬🇧
- 25 days annual leave + an extra day for every year you’re at Cleo (up to five accrued days) 🇬🇧
- Location specific benefits via Deel 🇪🇺
Company values
- Make it Happen - Own the outcome. Lend a hand, take a hand. Fast execution.
- No bullsh*t - Intellectually honest. Go hard on problems, not people. Data-backed decision making.
- Learn at Speed - Jump in and figure it out. Dig deep, do it right. Learn what matters.
- Bring Good Vibes - Read the room, lift the room. Show up for others. Keep it real, keep it positive.
Company HQ
Finsbury, London, UK
Leadership
Barnaby Hussey-Yeo
(Founder & CEO)Previously a Data Scientist at Wonga, one of the companies that pioneered the smart use of data for loan decisions. Joined Entrepreneur First where Cleo was formed.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Cleo AI
- We’ve set up an internal committee of truly passionate people that are dedicated to ensuring Diversity and Inclusion is embedded in how we all operate as a team. We agree on meaningful actions, and get on with implementing them. We have three main focuses right now, which are:
- 1) Improving SocioEconomic diversity across the company
- 2) Increasing the number of women in Leadership roles
- 3) More community outreach
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