Cleo

Financial digital assistant app
Last updated:
January 5, 2026
Company details
HQ
London, UK
HEADCOUNT
100-499
ORG TYPE
Startup
SECTOR
Finance
About the company
Cleo is an AI-powered personal finance assistant aimed at helping people manage money through a conversational experience. Cleo offers products like the Cleo Card, savings features, and programs focused on tackling debt and building healthier money habits. Cleo positions the product around coaching and behaviour change, using chat-style interactions rather than traditional banking dashboards. Cleo operates as a venture-backed consumer fintech with a large customer base in the US.
Locations and presence
Cleo has team presence across London, New York, and San Francisco, with hiring that supports remote work from stated hiring locations. Cleo also offers a hybrid option via the London office with an expectation of at least one day per week for people based there.
Palpable Score
77.4
/ 100
Cleo is unusually transparent for a scale-up, especially on salary bands, progression frameworks, and what interviews look like, which helps early-career candidates avoid guesswork. Cleo also posts true entry-level roles and describes hands-on support structures in team stories, although external sentiment on consistency of career development and management support is mixed. Missing public outcomes data like retention rates or early-career promotion rates limits how high the outcomes score can go.
Pillar 1: Early-career access

Score

15.8
/ 20
  • The company advertises true entry-level roles such as “Graduate Backend Ruby Engineer” and labels the level as “Entry and Junior level,” which is a direct on-ramp for new grads.
  • Cleo states in graduate engineering role hiring that Cleo is recruiting multiple Junior or Graduate Engineers, suggesting recurring early-career intake rather than a one-off hire.
  • The company publishes early-career stories (for example, Graduate Ruby Engineer and Junior Software Engineer experiences) that match real roles Cleo hires into, which supports credibility of access.

Pillar 2: Hiring fairness and transparency

Score

16.2
/ 20
  • The company lays out a step-by-step engineering interview process with stage lengths and a stated feedback turnaround after the initial talent screen.
  • Cleo’s graduate backend job post includes a full application timeline (closing date, interview window, and start date) plus a clear list of interview stages, which reduces candidate uncertainty.
  • The company talks publicly about keeping hiring “short, sweet, and impactful,” including tracking time-to-offer, but public feedback still includes some complaints about culture-fit subjectivity and occasional ghosting, which caps the score.

Pillar 3: Learning and support

Score

14.8
/ 20
  • The company describes structured early-career support in team stories, including assigning a mentor or buddy, a tech lead, and a manager with weekly check-ins for a graduate engineer.
  • Cleo’s graduate engineering role description is explicit about learning inside a cross-functional squad and being supported by the squad while shipping production changes.
  • The company funds learning through an L&D budget and role-based development structure, but public employee feedback is mixed on whether support and career development feel consistent across teams.

Pillar 4: Pay fairness and stability

Score

16.5
/ 20
  • The company publishes salary banding and progression frameworks openly, and Cleo also states Cleo does not ask candidates for current compensation, which reduces pay anchoring risk for early-career hires.
  • Cleo’s graduate backend role includes a posted salary range (£40k–£58k) and equity, giving candidates a concrete pay expectation before interviews.
  • The company lists benefits tied to stability and long-term wellbeing (health coverage, pension or 401k matching, paid parental leave, and sabbaticals), though some employee commentary questions how evenly pay progression lands in practice.

Pillar 5: Early-career outcomes

Score

14.1
/ 20
  • The company publishes a clear example of progression from a Junior Software Engineer to Tech Lead over roughly four and a half years, which is a meaningful early-career outcome.
  • Cleo’s public progression frameworks and twice-yearly performance review cadence create a visible promotion pathway, but external reviews include both praise and criticism about how consistent career growth feels across the company.
  • The company does not publish retention rates, early-career promotion rates, or internship-to-full-time conversion data, so outcomes beyond individual stories and review sentiment cannot be verified.

Clear filters
Results
matched jobs
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.