'NatWest Boxed and Trust in Soda have built a successful partnership focused on specialist engineering recruitment, ensuring access to top-tier talent. Together, they have prioritised diverse hiring, helping NatWest Boxed strengthen its engineering teams with a more inclusive and high-performing workforce'
Industry: Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), Embedded Finance
Headquarters: London, England
Partnership: Contingent Hiring Solution
Hires Made to Date: 23
Partnered Since: 2024
About NatWest Boxed
Established in 2022, NatWest Boxed is the UK’s leading banking-as-a-service provider. Combining a best-in-class technology stack, banking license, compliance expertise and operational support, NatWest Boxed have a vision to empower the UK's best embedded finance experiences. It currently employs over 600 people across the UK and Poland.
As embedded finance continues to gain ground, NatWest Boxed is focused on giving businesses the infrastructure, regulatory support, and technology needed to bring new financial products to market more effectively.
With a rapidly growing client base and a platform built to support the nation's most ambitious embedded finance propositions, NatWest Boxed is helping define what the next generation of financial services looks like.
The Challenge
At the end of 2024, NatWest Boxed launched a proprietary diversity and inclusion initiative to further strengthen its technology function.
The opportunity was clear, but so was the challenge. Improving gender representation in technology hiring meant doing more than widening the top of the funnel.
NatWest Boxed needed access to high-quality passive talent that would be difficult to reach through traditional routes, while also ensuring that diverse shortlists remained closely aligned to the technical demands of the roles.
This also had to work within an existing hiring structure. Rather than replacing the internal talent function, the model needed to complement it, strengthening shortlist quality and representation without slowing the process down.
The Solution
Trust in SODA worked alongside NatWest Boxed’s internal talent team on a diverse CV-only engagement designed to strengthen gender representation across technology interview shortlists.
The partnership drew on Trust in SODA’s reputation as a DEI specialist in global technology networks, combined with its access to passive talent through offline communities, including Women in DevOps and Pride in Tech.
That gave NatWest Boxed access to a broader and more representative talent pool than traditional sourcing channels alone would typically deliver.
Trust in SODA's delivery team complemented the existing hiring process, introducing diverse, high-quality profiles aligned to the technical demands of the roles and the standards of the business. The result was an intentional, balanced shortlist process built to improve representation without compromising on quality.
Results in Numbers
%
Net Promoter Score
:1
CV to Interview Ratio
Hires Made
:1
Interview to Placement Ratio
NatWest Boxed on Partnering with SODA
Mike Jetson, Talent Acquisition Lead @ NatWest Boxed & Mettle by NatWest
'It's been wonderful working with Dom! I really appreciate her clear communication, her flexibility to our preferred ways of working and the relationships she builds with her candidates helps us a lot in managing processes effectively.'
Parsa Lotfizadeh, Talent Acquisition Manager @ NatWest Boxed & Mettle by NatWest
Roles Placed
8 x Java Engineers • 4 x React Engineers • 3 x Platform Engineers • 2 x Data Engineers • 3 x Engineering Managers • Product Manager • Product Designer
Outcome
The partnership gave NatWest Boxed access to a more representative pool of high-quality technology talent, strengthening gender balance across interview shortlists without compromising on technical fit. Working alongside the internal talent team, Trust in SODA helped turn inclusive hiring ambition into a practical, repeatable delivery model, one that matched the ambition of a business helping shape the future of embedded finance in the UK.
DEI Specialist Spotlight - Dominika Kodadova
Dominika Kodadova is a Principal Recruitment Consultant at Trust in SODA, and the UK and Ireland Lead for Women in DevOps. A passionate advocate for the diversification of the tech workforce, Dom has hosted thought-provoking discussions on what it truly means to empower women in an environment resistant to change, including the recent panel discussion: Empowering Women in DevOps and AI: Breaking Biases and Embracing Advocacy. Dom is specialised in connecting diverse talent with inclusive, high-growth career opportunities across the full spectrum of technology. As a community lead for Women in DevOps, Dom is passionate about helping women break down the same barriers she once faced on the road to fulfilling work.
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