People don’t tend to change jobs with a baby on the way but when I saw the opportunity to join Monzo I felt it was worth taking the risk (spoiler alert, I am glad I did)! This blog will talk through my transition from a traditional SAS-based banking background to Monzo, detailing how I developed new skills, and the type of projects I got involved in during my first 12 months in the Credit Strategy team.

Monzo has a thorough interview process which was different to what I was used to but gave me an excellent opportunity to understand what makes Monzo different from my previous employers. After getting through the interview process and being fortunate enough to receive the offer I checked and double checked that I would still get the three months fully paid paternity leave four months into being a Monzonaut and I was very pleased to see I did. 

Those first four months were a whirlwind of emotions trying to get up to speed with all sorts of systems and software that were completely alien to me after over 10 years of using SAS and Excel. I arrived asking myself: “Do people use Google Sheets over Excel? Big Query instead of SAS? Slack over email? And what even are VS code and DBT”. Thankfully the initial panic subsided over time due to the collective support of colleagues, the training resources available through the detailed documentation and the help of the AI based tools which Monzo embraces. 

Monzo has colleagues with a wealth of experience from diverse backgrounds and this means that most challenges were just a Slack question away. Also with the open usage of Slack it was common that I was not the first person to face a particular issue and the answer was ready and waiting. If colleague support wasn’t readily available or I felt that I needed to make use of other tools, the use of AI tools has been really helpful and time saving particularly when trying to find data sources or repetitive coding requirements. They also have an annual development budget which I made use of to try and fine tune my Python skills.

Just as I started to get up to speed I was off on paternity leave for three months to learn how to be a dad (I would not recommend getting too much AI support on this)! Returning from paternity leave and the realisation that babies are hard work was also a daunting step. Monzo however gave me plenty of flexibility, allowing me to reduce my hours to part time to continue enjoying those special moments. Giving me the flexibility on my working days to be able to do those fun winter nursery runs!

Also probably worth mentioning some of the exciting projects I have been involved in after joining the Loans Credit Strategy team! The push for growth at Monzo was really exciting to see when joining and how far the company has come in 12 months gives me a real excitement for what is to come in the future. I have been able to get involved in so many projects including managing the full credit strategy for Monzo increasing the maximum loan amount to £35k and maximum loan term to 84 months. Projects like these gave me the opportunity to explore areas of the product strategy I would not previously have had much sight off. 

So in summary, after 12 months at Monzo I have found it a great place to work for personal development. I have managed to pick up numerous new skills, transition from a SAS dominated world to Big Query and get involved in some important business projects. All of this whilst having the flexibility to welcome a new addition to my family even as a Monzo baby myself! 

If what you’ve read here resonates and you’re passionate about making money work for everyone, we’re hiring data engineers, analysts, and many more roles across Monzo! Take a look at our careers page to see if we have the right role for you.