Tom Stuart
Engineering leader. Scaler of teams,
architect of systems, builder of things.
London, England — Engine by Starling
- 100+
- Engineers scaled & led
- £2bn+
- Lending portfolio delivered
- 15+
- Years in engineering
- 3
- US patents granted
About
I'm an engineering leader who builds teams, defines technical strategy, and ships products that matter — at companies where the stakes are high and the problems are hard.
Currently Engineering Director at Engine by Starling, the technology division of Starling Bank. I've grown our engineering organisation from 10 to over 100 engineers while leading the architecture and delivery of a cloud-native, API-first SaaS banking platform now deployed to banks worldwide.
At Starling Bank, I led the lending engineering team that scaled our portfolio from £37m to £2bn — building the systems, processes, and team culture to sustain that growth in a regulated, high-velocity environment.
Earlier, I co-founded LearnAware, which gives me a founder's perspective on product direction, resource constraints, and what it takes to build something from scratch. I hold three US patents from an industrial placement at Xerox, where I submitted over 20 invention proposals.
I'm a technologist at heart — with a specialism in JVM systems and cloud architecture — who has grown into a strategic leader. I'm at my best when there's a hard problem to solve, a team to grow, and a market to win.
Experience
- Scaled the engineering organisation from 10 to 100+ engineers in under 12 months
- Defined technical strategy and led architecture for a cloud-native, multi-tenant SaaS banking platform deployed to banks globally
- Promoted from Principal Engineer to Engineering Director; responsible for hiring, culture, delivery, and client success across all technology teams
- Led the lending engineering team; grew Starling's portfolio from £37m to £1.5bn in 12 months, reaching £2bn by 2021
- Delivered core Retail and SME lending products, regulatory reporting, and customer service tooling at scale
- Operated at 10+ releases per day on AWS; scaled systems to serve millions of customers
- Worked across startup and enterprise engagements from greenfield builds to legacy re-architectures
- Delivered a multi-channel enterprise platform for Ladbrokes Coral using Java, Node.js, React, and Docker on AWS
- Specialised in large-scale distributed systems on AWS and GCP
- Co-founded an edtech company serving UK educational institutions
- Owned all technical strategy, product development, and system architecture from day one
- Combined engineering with commercial and domain knowledge to grow the business
- Submitted 20+ invention proposals; three granted as US patents for novel electronic and software architectures
- Developed test automation and supported onsite and offshore engineering teams
Contact
Always happy to connect with other engineering leaders, swap notes, or join a roundtable discussion. If you're working on something interesting in fintech, B2B SaaS, or engineering leadership — reach out.