Commonwealth Bank to hire 400 new tech workers in Melbourne hub

While other executives are laying off staff, Commonwealth Bank boss Matt Comyn says he wants to lure Melbourne-based engineers to come and work for the bank.

CBA executives Brendan Hopper, Matt Comyn and Pip Foweraker.

Commonwealth Bank says it will hire hundreds of workers for a new Melbourne technology hub, launched in partnership with RMIT and Monash University on Thursday, with the bank on the hunt for personnel with skills in artificial intelligence, data and security.

The new technology centre, to be established on Melbourne‘s Collins Street, follows similar hubs in Adelaide and Sydney, as part of what the bank says is a $1bn investment into the nation’s digital skills.

Software engineering students from Monash University and RMIT will be provided with job placements in a range of engineering roles, the bank’s chief executive Matt Comyn said.

Mr Comyn said the pandemic had meant the bank was now looking beyond its Sydney headquarters to hire tech workers. CBA is already one of the nation’s largest hirers of tech talent.

“At the moment it’s a tight labour market, and during the last couple of years we’ve demonstrated that we want to bring more capability in-house working for CBA, and we haven’t had the representation in Melbourne that we would have liked, it’s a very significant market for us from a customer perspective,” Mr Comyn said.

“The overall advantage I think you get working at CBA is a very strong, strategic support and focus on big investments in technology, engineering and experiences that make a real difference to customers’ lives. We want to build a strong and compelling proposition for people to join us.”

Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn: ‘We want to have a great proposition to attract the best people and to give them really rewarding and exciting work.’

Brendan Hopper, CBA’s chief information officer for technology, said the bank is looking to hire about 400 new workers in the next three years, amid a difficult macroeconomic landscape in which many tech companies are laying off staff.

“We also believe we have one of the best early careers program in the technology industry and we are ambitious to grow it.”

Mr Comyn said the move would help CBA continue to stay innovative in the face of smaller more nimble start-ups.

“We want to have a great proposition to attract the best people and to give them really rewarding and exciting work, and to be able to make better decisions for our customers to deliver better experiences over the long term,” he said. “The short-term [economic] volatility isn‘t going to distract us from that.”