Product Accessibility Specialist

Starling is the UK’s first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! Our vision is fast technology, fair service, and honest values. All at the tap of a phone, all the time.

We are about giving customers a new way to spend, save and manage their money while taking better care of the planet which has seen us become a multi-award winning bank that now employs over 2800 across five offices in London, Cardiff, Dublin, Southampton, and Manchester. Our journey started in 2014, and since then we have surpassed 3.5 million accounts (and four account types!) with 350,000 business customers. We are a fully licensed UK bank but at the heart, we are a tech first company, enabling our platform to deliver brilliant products.

Our technologists are at the very heart of Starling 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 way to thrive and shine within Starling is to be a self-driven individual and be able to take full ownership of everything around you: From building things, designing, discovering, to sharing knowledge with your colleagues and making sure all processes are efficient and productive to deliver the best possible results for our customers. Our purpose is underpinned by five Starling values: Listen, Keep It Simple, Do The Right Thing, Own It, and Aim For Greatness.

Hybrid Working

We have a Hybrid approach to working here at Starling - our preference is that you're located within a commutable distance of one of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person. We don't like to mandate how much you visit the office and work from home, that's to be agreed upon between you and your manager. 

Our Engineering Environment

Starling engineers are excited about helping us deliver new features, regardless of what their primary tech stack may be. Hear from the team in our latest blogs or our case studies with Women in Tech.

As a product accessibility Specialist here at Starling you will be at the forefront of pushing us to the next level in serving our customers. We want someone who has the autonomy to independently review our apps, website and online bank and provide us with feedback and guidance as well as someone who can collaborate with a team, including designers, product and engineering, to ensure we are getting it right the first time. As part of this role you will carry out user testing to help us identify real usability and accessibility issues our customers may be facing.  You'll use your own initiative to monitor and drive improvements, and communicate identified risks or issues to the wider team.

Applications close on 6th January 2025, but we encourage you to apply as soon as possible if you are interested in the role. Interviews will begin early January 2025.

Responsibilities: 

• Independently audit our mobile and web applications and feedback to relevant teams  your findings as well as guidance on how best to improve
• Work with our product and engineering teams to help test features and find solutions to accessibility issues
• Advocate for accessibility and help educate the product, engineering and wider teams on best practises and challenges we face
• Keep up to date with latest guidelines regarding accessibility and related standards
• Help us expand our user testing to understand how real customers are using our app and unique obstacles they may be facing
• Work autonomously to help test new and existing features with accessibility and user experience in mind

• Hands on experience auditing/ testing an application with a focus on accessibility to drive improvements using manual testing and tools 
• 2+ years of experience in specialising in accessibility 
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams to improve customers experience
• Good understanding of usability and inclusive design
• Able to analyse risk, severity, and impact of issues identified and work with the wider team to help us prioritise and resolve them
• Maintain an adaptable and pragmatic approach to testing, switching modes to meet the needs of the bank
• An understanding of WCAG, particularly its influence regarding mobile applications 
• Ability to work autonomously and use initiative to help us focus on the most important elements 
• Good understanding of user experience best practices and UX testing
• Comfortable conducting exploratory testing of iOS and Android applications

Nice to have:

• Understanding of code to help advise what may be the cause of an issue and to help advise potential solutions
• Experience auditing/ testing specifically with native mobile applications

Interview process

Interviewing is a two way process and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you! Our interviews are conversational and we want to get the best from you, so come with questions and be curious. In general you can expect the below, following a chat with one of our Talent Team:

• 30 minute video call interview with one of the product team
• 1 hour video call interview with two members of the product team
• Executive interview (45 min): Interview with our Head of Product and an executive member of the team.

• 25 days holiday (plus take your public holiday allowance whenever 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
• 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
• 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

You may be put off applying for a role because you don't tick every box. Forget that! While we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we're always open to discussion. So, if you're excited about working with us, but aren’t sure if you're 100% there yet, get in touch anyway.

We’re on a mission to radically reshape banking – and that starts with our brilliant team. Whatever came before, we’re proud to bring together people of all backgrounds and experiences who love working together to solve problems.

Starling Bank is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Starling Bank 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.

By submitting your application, you agree that Starling Bank may collect your personal data for recruiting and related purposes. Our Privacy Notice explains what personal information we may process, where we may process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over our use of your personal information.