1 World Retail Congress sessions
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers →
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers →
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
Product
~ Strategy & Digital Transformation
Reimagining Retail
Client: Hackmasters & EY for World Retail Congress
Across 2019 and 2020, I was brought into World Retail Congress's "hack" series of events, leading a group of C-Level executives at companies including TJX Europe, Zalando, and Tendam through the process of building new products with an agile start-up approach.
From post-it'ing trends to whiteboarding initial concepts and UX, all the way through to pitching, we built a number of new retail products through sessions at EY's London office and a 5-day sprint at World Retail Congress' flagship event in Amsterdam.
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Verification of Children Online (VoCO)
Client: GCHQ CSEA (Child Sexual Exploitation & Abuse) & Home Office OSCT ACE (Office for Security and Counter Terrorism Accelerated Capability Environment)
As an 18-year-old who had been working in tech sector for over 3 years, I was invited to join the CSEA taskforce to provide a fresh perspective on their approach to child safety, products & services.
The cross-industry taskforce included representatives from Bytedance (TikTok), Facebook, Snap, Google, BT, EE, O2, and Vodafone.
Read the Phase 2 Report →
1 World Retail Congress sessions
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers →
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers →
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
Product
~ Strategy, Design & Management
Building the world's most magical banking app ✨
Client: Umber
I left Monzo in 2019 to found Umber, an app that supercharges your existing bank account and credit card with new features and rewards.
I raised our initial pre-seed at a valuation just over £1.1mil ($1.5mil) as an 18 years old with no team or product behind me; just an idea. We've since shifted our focus towards the US and are fast approaching our next raise to launch in the US.
I've been working on our strategy, product, brand design and UI/UX over multiple iterations for almost two years, and have twice managed teams of young engineering interns to help bring the app to life.
Ping me if you'd like to see the deck.
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Greenfield platform rebuild for an insurance scale-up
Client: Zego
During a 4-month hiatus of my time at Umber, I started consulting to make ends meet. I joined Zego as a Senior Product Consultant on the Platform Products team under the CPO and new Director of Platform Products.
I was tasked with determining & delivering the first phase of a complete rebuild of Zego’s Insurance Platform. In doing so I was responsible for a number of squads and worked across the org from Client Ops to Principal Engineers to determine requirements and ship.
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Product Conceptualisations & Strategy
Client: IMAX
I approached the CEO of IMAX about working together in 2020 and entered into conversations about their current strategy.
Due to my increased focus on Umber the collaboration did not directly work out, but I spent time with IMAX's CFO, CTO, and Chief of Staff fleshing out a variety of concepts and strategic ideas across their PVOD, innovation, and hardware verticals.
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A new type of bank for young people
Client: Starling Bank
I left home at 16 years old to join Starling Bank as an engineer, getting special approval for an account as a u18 customer. Through chatting with friends I quickly realised how big a need there was for a young person's fintech account, so knocked on the CEO's office door and pitched her the idea of "Starling for young people".
I worked with the VP of Product and our core product team to build and launch the new accounts in early 2018.
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Product revamp
Client: Percent
I joined Percent as interim Head of Product for 3 months during my transition from Monzo to Umber. In addition to leading Product Strategy, I managed an agile cross-functional team of 6 engineers and 1 designer, working in conjunction with the CTO, COO, and CMO.
I led the team in revamping Percent's onboarding flow, introducing a discovery section for digital retailers within the app, and building 'Percent Fundraisers' - a new product feature to boost customer acquistion and donations to good causes.
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Student accounts & Monzo Charity
Client: Monzo
I was convinced to take the trip (quite literally) across the road from Starling Bank to Monzo to work directly under the company's co-founder, Jonas. I had a vision for student & young person's accounts and was brought in to lead these new developments.
I was the point-of-contact for anything student or u18 related during my time at Monzo, working on a variety of design concepts, product features, and primarily product strategies, liasing with CS, Legal & Regs, Ops, Design, and more.
I was also the Product Manager for Monzo Charity - a project I started internally to increase giving to charities by prompting Monzo users to round up their spare change on a specific day (e.g. Trans Day of Visibilty or Red Nose Day). The concept was a hit, and I built a team of 8 employees including the Head of Design working in our spare time to bring the feature to life.
1 World Retail Congress sessions
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers →
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers →
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
Engineering
~ Backend & DevOps
Staff Platform for Monzo
Client: Monzo
Stack: Golang microservices with Apache Cassandra database nodes, all running on AWS. Frontend is powered by React, deployed on AWS and Netlify.
One of the larger projects I worked on at Monzo was the build of our internal staff platform: a series of backend microservices and web app that linked personal and staff account data across a variety of 3rd party services.
This ranged from integrations with Slack and Fleetsmith to HiBob for our HR team, even going as far as building a direct onboarding pipeline for new employees with our technology partner Novatech so that their MacBook would be ordered, pre-configured into Monzo's MDM and delivered on their start date ready to be onboarded.
This project was a collaboration between TechOps and the Org Scaling team.
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Webhooks for customers
Client: Starling Bank
Stack: Java SpringMVC microservices with Postgres, running on AWS. Frontend is a React app built with redux, also running on AWS.
Whilst working on our new v2 Payments Services API with my team, I spent time creating Personal Access Webhooks which gave customers and developers the ability to build amazing projects with real-time data directly from their own Starling Account for free - all without needing prior authorisation.
Watch my demo of webhooks →
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Umber’s tech stack
Client: Umber
Umber has been the biggest engineering project I've undertaken, building the entire engineering stack from Mobile to Backend by myself in just a few months, whilst making decisions with growth and scale in mind.
I brought a couple of close, trusted advisors to the table to help me throughout this process - namely Sam Rose, a Senior Engineer at Nebula who's previously worked as an Engineering Lead at Google, Monzo, and Starling.
I settled on using TypeScript across the board - a statically typed variation of JavaScript - with express microservices, a react site, and a react-native app. This would make it easier to hire, for the dev team to work across all platforms, and would allow for consistent typechecking and error handling across the stack.
Our auth system was also built in-house using custom JWTs and a few OAuth providers.
Our backend is made up of Express microservices which deploy to GCP on App Engine with Postgres through Prisma and CloudSQL (with a view to migrate to CockroachDB as we scale).
We have 3 environments - development, staging, and production - with associated backend builds and mobile app builds. Our primary GitHub branch automatically pushes to staging, with tags and releases used to promote builds to Production. We're using GitHub Actions for CI/CD including linting and deployments with Google Cloud, and all PRs must be reviewed (I brought on external advisors to help me do this during development).
1 World Retail Congress sessions
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers →
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers →
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
Engineering
~ Websites
The Progression Framework
Client: Monzo, as open source software (OSS)
Stack: React, Gatsby, custom YAML + Markdown SSR build, deployed on Netlify.
My team at Monzo was responsible for scaling, and one of our projects focused on creating a structure for fairer hiring and pay transparency. Each vertical created a 'progression framework' for managees and reports to use as the groundwork for their internal progression, and for hiring managers to use to grade candidates.
I built out the technology to support this - a lightning fast site with significant data ingestion built with React and Gatsby (for static SSR), rendered from structured data (YAML) or unstructured files (Markdown) and the ability for other teams to collaborate on the spec.
The project was made open source for others to use, and has since had over 230 stars and been adapted into frameworks for other companies such as:
I designed the site myself with advice from Monzo's design team, and built out a library of documentation to help team members add to the framework.
View the site →
View the source code on GitHub →
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Internal admin platform
Client: Starling Bank
Stack: React app built with Bootstrap and Redux, deployed on AWS.
Whilst I can only share a limited amount of information on this due to its confidential nature, I spent a significant amount of time helping to improve Starling's internal administrative platform used across the company from HR to Customer Support.
You can see this being used in the Webhooks talk linked in the Backend tab.
--
Developer Portal
Client: Starling Bank
Stack: React app built with Bootstrap, Redux, and Swagger, deployed on AWS.
Whilst building out our v2 Payments Services API, I spent time refreshing various parts our Developer Portal, building out new UI for Personal Access Webhooks and integrating new Swagger documentation into the portal.
View the site →
--
pls.vote
Personal Project
Stack: Same fundementals as the Monzo Progression Framework; React, Gatsby, custom YAML + Markdown SSR build, deployed on Netlify
During the 2018 election I came up with an idea - a single domain that would help you register to vote in just a tap, no matter where you are in the world. It's an open source community project which I maintain, designed to increase levels of voter participation.
I bought the "pls.vote" domain and got building the infrastructure, which automatically redirects to information relevant to your current state or country based on IP.
A new version of the site is currently under development, but you can view the old version here.
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playschool.studio
Client: Annabel Lake (Bakken & Bæck)
Stack: Native DHTML deployed via Netlify
In 2019 I built the site for Bakken & Bæck designer Annabel Lake's new studio, built on an interactive canvas compatible across a range of touch-based devices (which proved a harder challenge than expected!).
View the site →
--
Watchface generator & company site
Client: BLOCKS Wearables, Imperial College London
Stack: Native DHTML with jQuery, Rust, MySQL CloudSQL, deployed via Google App Engine
One of the first commerical projects I took on was building the Watchface Builder for BLOCKS Wearables at 14 years old. This was used to customize the watchfaces for Kickstarter backers upon arrival, and I went on to build the actual watchfaces for the device too. Coincedentally, a similar design was adopted by Apple to allow users to customise their Apple Watch upon their Series 3 launch a couple of years later!
I additionally worked on the development of the company’s primary website, featuring a number of interactive animations demonstrating the capabilities of a modular smartwatch.
Video: View the watchface builder →
Site: View the (archived) BLOCKS site →
--
lucasjohnston.co.uk
Personal project
Stack: React, Gatsby, deployed on Netlify, additional material from Cargo
This site 😉
1 World Retail Congress sessions
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers→
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
RAI Amsterdam - 2019
Watch the interview →
2 Talks at Monzo
Monzo - 2019
Watch the talk →
3 Talks at Starling
Starling Bank - 2018
Read the press release →
Watch talk on developer webhooks →
4 Launch day
Percent, Soho - 2020
Watch an overview of fundraisers→
Try the app →
5 Team presentation for the Business Sec. Liz Truss
Starling Bank - 2017
Twitter →
6 Google Education talk
BETT London - 2014
Engineering
~ Mobile
Umber
Client: Umber
Umber has been the biggest engineering project I've undertaken, building the entire engineering stack from Mobile to Backend by myself in just a few months, whilst making decisions with growth and scale in mind. More information can be found under the Backend & DevOps header.
I settled on using TypeScript across the board, using React Native for mobile development. Additional libraries used include:
- MobX State Tree (MST) as a central data repository
- apisauce for backend calls to our RESTful API
- AsyncStorage with MST integration
- React Navigation 5
- Reactotron integration for debugging
I built our JWT-powered auth library in house, and additionally built new custom libraries for Animated Liquid Gradients (both in backgrounds and text), as well a custom cross-platform Haptics library for tactile feedback when performing actions in the app.
Plaid's SDK is used for the initial account linking, and requests to fetch a user's balance reccurs on app opening and every 3 minutes thereafter. Chats have also been built in house, from design to the caching/fetching implementation.
Ping me if you'd like to try out the app.
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