Employee spotlight: Chris Peake, CTO

• Tell us a little bit about your background?

Before joining Cushon I spent 15 years working in technology teams at big investment banks. I knew from an early age that I wanted to work with computers and loved coding; the magic of making computers do something useful for people in the real world. Studying Computer Science at university was an easy choice, but it was by chance that I started working in the Financial Services sector. I’ve never looked back though! I built platforms that supported the trading of equities (stocks and shares), provided information about the millions of different financial instruments that can be bought and sold around the world, and helped investment bankers manage their deal pipelines. I started out as a software engineer and ended up managing lots of engineering teams spread all over the world.

• What do you do at Cushon and what do you enjoy most about it?

My job is to make sure the Engineering team at Cushon have everything they need to deliver a fantastic product to our customers and clients, and that everyone understands the product roadmap and business objectives. That means aligning our architecture and technology roadmaps and ensuring we’re building the right features and capabilities at the right time.

I really enjoy building a product that directly touches and improves the lives of people in the UK; customers who become more financially resilient and save more towards their futures, clients who find it easier to support their employees and administer their workplace benefits, and companies with sustainable business practices that can access capital more easily than those that don’t. Investment banks are an exciting place to work, but you tend to be three or four steps removed from the people whose lives are affected by your work. I love the direct connection at Cushon.

Oh, and overcoming interesting technical challenges, and working with a fantastic bunch of people every day across the whole company is pretty great too!

• How does the engineering team serve all our customers?

Our product, the technology platform which sits at the heart of Cushon, touches every one of our customers every day; investing their money, tracking how their investments are performing, and providing instant, real-time access to their savings and investments via our mobile app and web app. The engineering team is constantly working to deliver new experiences and features, and to ensure the platform is secure and resilient. Everything we do, and every decision we make, influences the service Cushon offers its customers.

• Why would you recommend Cushon to engineers looking for a new career opportunity?

We own our platform, front to back. From mobile app to asset ledgers. We integrate with payment gateways, banks, custodians, customer data and engagement platforms, and other third parties. We’re scaling the platform in a big way, taking it to 1 million customers and beyond. We’re always looking to improve the Developer Experience to make engineering at Cushon a rewarding and productive place to work.

• What is a project your team is working on?

We’re working on a couple exciting things at the moment.

First up is letting customers withdraw from their pension pots through our mobile app. Withdrawing money from pensions isn’t as simple as from savings, so we’ve put a lot of work into guiding customers through the choices they have.

At the same time, we’re busy migrating 450,000 customers onto our technology platform from the three pension providers we’ve acquired over the last couple of years. That’s a lot of data and financial assets that we have to ship around. Attention to detail is everything! We want to give all our customers the full Cushon experience with immediate access to their accounts through web and mobile and new ways of engaging with their finances. That begins by giving them a seamless onboarding experience.

• What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I’ve got two children, so when I’m not working a lot of my “free” time is spent with them! They both play football at the weekend, and I help coach their teams. I like to be active, so I run, road bike, and mountain bike. I enjoy playing guitar and piano, which are a great way of relaxing and being “in the moment”.

• Tell us an interesting or little-known fact about yourself?

I qualified for the UK Obstacle Course Racing championships a few years ago. Sadly, I didn’t get to compete due to an injury which took a while to recover from. It’s still on the bucket list!

Watch Chris’ recent interview with Woodhurst speaking about how Cushon started, our growth journey and some features we’ve released over the years to better support our customers.

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Article by

NatWest Cushon