Schools out: CBA tech graduate program comes with a discounted mortgage

What can a big four bank offer that free-lunch serving technology giants can’t? A discounted mortgage says CBA.

At the nation’s largest bank, there’s no such thing as a free lunch for graduates but the major lender thinks it has something else to offer that the tech giants aren’t able to match.

Commonwealth Bank’s pitch to new graduates has skipped all the perks typically associated with tech giants, such as an in-house bar and in-house baristas, and touches upon one of the biggest issues facing young people – housing.

“We’re a bank, so we can offer a competitive mortgage rate if graduates are interested in buying their first apartment or house, but we’re not a classic tech company that offers free lunches, I’m afraid. That’s definitely not one of our perks,” the bank’s head of technology HR, Jane Adams, told The Australian.

CBA executive general manager of HR Jane Adams.

CBA had increasingly begun to compete with tech giants such as Canva, Atlassian and Microsoft for the top crop of new graduate talent, and the discount on home loans was being used to lure promising young workers through the door.

Ms Adams signalled that the old bank was now able to match the salaries of the big tech companies, telling The Australian that: “We’ve benchmarked the salaries we pay to make sure that we’re competitive in market, and that’s at a base level.”

Discounts on bank accounts, credit cards, personal and home loans, and often waived fees for these products are also available.

The bank is spruiking the perks as it opens applications for its 2024 tech graduate program. There are 220 spots to fill and they will rotate from desks in its cyber security department to cloud computing and front-end development.

Margie Chi and Nathaniel Tran in Sydney on Wednesday. Picture: John Feder

CBA’s tech graduate program has grown quite a bit over the past four years, from 57 graduates in 2020 to 86 in 2021, 120 in 2022 and 219 in 2023.

Among this year’s graduate intake in Sydney is Nathaniel Tran, 21, and Margie Chi, 22, both of whom had worked together as summer interns.

Sanjeda Raheem, 28, is a Melbourne-based graduate who joined the 12 to 18-month program in 2022.

She’s about to enter her third rotation in CBA’s AWS platform squad. Her first two rotations were as a front-end developer and as a systems engineer.

“The good thing about the rotation processes are that you get to put in your preferences and figure out what you’re most interested in. I’ve put myself in a position where I’ll be in a team for my final rotation where I’m happy to roll off into and continue doing something I’m already loving,” she said.

Asked why she chose CBA over other tech businesses, Ms Raheem said she had studied chemical and biological engineering at university but had enjoyed tech – and the bank welcomed people with different educational backgrounds.

Sanjeda Raheem is about to enter her third rotation with the bank’s AWS platform squad.

Mr Tran had a similar answer, having studied a bachelor of information systems.

“While it is a technical degree in the software space, it’s not as technical as something like software engineering or computer science, which is generally what tech companies look for when hiring for engineers and developers,” he said.

However, Ms Chu said her decision was a little more personal.

“I think for me, it was mainly because I’ve been with CBA for banking since I was, like, 14. Ever since then, I have been really curious about the inside workings of a bank; especially since finance has such a big impact on people,” she said.

While the graduates hadn’t yet taken up the offer for a discounted mortgage, they were enjoying other benefits.

“I think that one of the benefits that I’m really starting to appreciate is how open CBA really is. We have this open floor plan and I actually sit across from my boss,” Mr Tran said.

“They’re all pretty open to conversation and it’s not as scary as working corporate had seemed when I first joined.”