Build a Bank: Monzo with Richard Dingwall

When you interact with your bank, it probably feels different than when you interact with a software technology company. That’s because the biggest banks in the world were started before software became such a universally important tool. Their core competency is banking–not consumer software.

Today, most banks make consumer-facing software. But these banks were not founded by engineers. The software development process at a typical bank does not look like the software development process at a software company like Netflix.

Monzo is a digital bank that focuses on high quality engineering. Since it was started in 2015, Monzo has always thought of itself as a software company. This gives it certain advantages over older banks.

Today’s guest Richard Dingwall is an engineer at Monzo, and he joins the show to describe Monzo’s software architecture, the engineering strategy, and its migration to Kubernetes. Richard has prior experience at several different banks and financial institutions.

Transcript

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