How the big four banks look to lure graduate tech talent

The big four banks are changing the way they operate, ditching the corporate suit for jeans and a polo in a bid to hire 2000 new tech graduates.

NAB senior consultant engineer Brenton Walker (front) with interns (from left) Daniel Ho, Peggy Yu, Daniel Bound, Olivia Bryan and Alex Qiang. Picture: Arsineh Houspian

The big four banks are changing the way they operate, ditching the corporate suit for jeans and a polo in a bid to hire 2000 new tech graduates.

ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac all want a slice of the nation’s top tech talent, and acknowledge getting their hands on the brightest minds has become increasingly difficult with the tech giants expanding their local presence.

NAB has hired 400 interns this year, a healthily paid bunch who have worked on the likes of the business’s new buy now, pay later service, the acquisition of Citibank and its 86400 neo-bank. The bank now plans to bring on 160 more in coming months.

NAB’s tech careers manager, Jade Warrener, is a former graduate who has held several roles at the bank. Asked how NAB remained competitive against other tech giants, she said: “I think it’s more about what more can you offer them. We are also focusing on professional development and really about investing in them and making sure that they are investing in themselves.”

The company even offered an “authentic branding class” in which staff were taught how to market themselves on LinkedIn.

In previous years, top performing interns were flown to Las Vegas to attend workshops.

During Covid times, the likes of an Amazing Race-style event with the prize of an escape room experience and lunch with NAB executives Terri Sutherland and Steve Day had been The bank says it’s one of the largest employers of software engineers in the southern hemisphere, with about 5000 staff on hand.

Among them is Brenton Walker, 27, a senior consultant engineer who joined as an intern in 2018. Mr Walker has been promoted twice, now leading a team of about 11, including four interns.

He said university graduates today were more advanced: “It seems like the university programs are closer aligned to how a professional workplace actually worked.”

Other banks have similarly ambitious plans. CBA will go on the largest hiring spree, bringing on board 1000 engineers at a rate of 100 per month, a spokeswoman said. It’s a bump up from the 850 hired since June last year.

More than 130 tech graduates joined the company in March as part of a two-year program working across CBA and Bankwest. In a bid to attract younger staff, CBA opened a paid university internship program in which students could choose their own hours.

“CBA is equipping its technology staff with the same tools and techniques they would have working at global technology companies, and making sure they can clearly see how their technology work provides a positive impact on our customers,” the spokeswoman said.

ANZ has hired 110 technology graduates this year. Group executive technology Gerard Florian said ANZ would see them work on the highest-scaled computing problems in the Asia-Pacific.

“The work we’re doing with ANZx, with payments, machine learning and with our fraud controls is incredibly important to Australia’s society, giving our people a greater sense of purpose beyond the task,” he said.

Mr Florian did not go into the specifics of employee benefits, only that ANZ offered flexible working arrangements and a competitive salary that had attracted talent from Silicon Valley. He said the bank focused on hiring female engineers with a return-to-work program.

This year Westpac set off to hire 200 employees for its new Gold Coast engineering hub. The bank’s chief information officer, Paul Bari, said the hub supported lifestyle choices for staff.

“With a growing number of Australians seeking hybrid working options or a regional move, we’ve chosen the Gold Coast to combine the best lifestyle, career and growth opportunities into what we see as Australia’s own ‘Silicon Beach’,” Mr Bari said.