It’s a Chimed Life: Meet Charles Kirk, Director of Engineering

Talk to Charles Kirk and you might notice a slight accent. Ask him about it, and he’ll joke that he sounds like he’s from somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. “I was born in Chicago and moved to England at a young age,” he explains. “We moved back and forth a couple of times until I finished secondary school in England and jumped straight into my software engineering career.”

When dreams of the booming tech and startup industry in the U.S. kept him up at night, Charles decided to move back to Chicago. “It was a no-brainer for me; I’ve always felt a connection to the city and considered myself a Chicagoan,” he says. “The midwest is so unique because it brings people together in a friendly atmosphere — despite our hostile winters — and around a shared set of values. Even in the dead of winter, if you spot someone needing to jumpstart their car, there are often three people helping them.” He also loves the size and brashness of the city: “It’s big, it’s metal, and people get things done.”

A big part of Charles’ ongoing connection to Chicago was also to its tech scene: “I’ve worked with several startups over the years and seen the space grow immensely, as well as watched some amazing companies be born here,” he says. “While there are the obvious innovation hubs in the Bay Area, New York, and Austin, Chicago has always been a player in the space — and it provides a tight-knit community, unlike any other startup ecosystem I’ve seen.”

Join us as we get to know Charles, his journey to software engineering, the growth he’s experienced over his career, and his role at Chime.

Career growth — and feeling a little bit like a magician

The enthusiasm for Chime was undeniable for Charles from the start. His first exposure was through a friend who introduced him to Chime with their own 10/10 review: “My friend told me that there were no overdraft fees, he got paid two days early — that this just isn’t something any other companies offer,” Charles says. And not only did Chime speak to Charles’ interest in building software and businesses to help people, but to his background and love of the startup mentality. “This is a team operating with really ambitious goals while scaling rapidly,” he says As his interest deepened, so did Charles’ understanding of the impact that Chime could have on people’s lives: “I grew up with very little money — a product like Chime could have really been helpful when we were going through tough times,” he says.

In his role at Chime, Charles is a Director of Engineering supporting Risk and Identity. “We have two goals — enable the best experience for our members so that using Chime is seamless and to make it the worst experience possible for fraudsters and the bad guys,” he says. With those two goals as his north star, Charles leads several different teams: the Authentication, KYC, and Identity and Access Management teams. Together, the three teams secure Chime members’ access to their money and make enrollments as seamless as possible while ensuring their legitimacy and safety.

Charles provides his teams with strategic direction, vision, and strategy, building roadmaps for engineers to keep building upon Chime’s signature offerings. “This work reminds me of how I felt when I was young and first started programming — I felt like a magician,” he says. “The feeling that me and my team can use the set of tools we have to create something we could have only imagined — sometimes, it still feels like magic to me, even though it’s very real.”

Keeping things interesting

Charles is no stranger to the idea that keeping things fresh can keep interest piqued — “Whenever I join a new role, I like to learn something new,” he says. “My first startup was an intro to video transcoding, a topic I knew nothing about, and from there I learned about meal kit operations management. When I joined Chime, I didn’t have a background in risk or identity — it was this whole vertical that I knew nothing about.”

This new path has had Charles learning about and staying ahead of fraudsters’ techniques, financial crimes, and regulations. He’s also learned a ton about Chime’s values, which have inspired his work: “I’m most motivated by our Chime In and Team Up values,” he says. “You can ask any Chimer about their work and they’ll happily explain it to you. That means that one day you might know nothing about an area and the next you have an understanding of how it works, and that’s pretty fantastic.”

Leading with curiosity

Charles’ favorite Chime values also happen to heavily inform his leadership style. “I love to solve problems but I’m not someone who approaches problems individually”, he says. This collaborative effort and belief in Chime’s Team Up value drives him to lead with a strengths-based leadership approach. “When I want to solve a problem, I pull together a group of people with complementary skills, put them in a room and, together, we can solve the problem.”

This energy creates an optimal environment for whiteboarding, innovation, and building something new. Because of that, fintech’s traditional ways of solving problems are a thing of the past for Charles. “We’re challenging an industry that hasn’t changed the game much in decades — when we tear down those traditional barriers, we can find different solutions that actually work better for our members,” he explains.

Looking forward

Together, Charles, Chimers, and midwesterners are solving problems — from frozen cars to bringing Chime members more financial peace of mind.

For Charles, tearing down the barriers around problem solving and growth is one of the most exciting things about the future at Chime, and also creates the most opportunities for growth. That’s one of the reasons he looked forward to Chime’s new Chicago office opening. “I recently visited our new San Francisco office where we booked a sprint room — an incredible space with interactive whiteboards that allow seamless collaboration across offices and with remote employees,” he explains. “Introducing this level of tech and connectivity in our new Chicago office and beyond will allow for extraordinary problem solving and usher in a new level of collaboration across all Chime offices, and I can’t wait to see what we accomplish.”

Beyond collaborating with his colleagues across offices and inside Chime’s new Chicago space, Charles is excited about what Chime will deliver to members in the coming years. “This is a really big industry and Chime has become a true player,” he says. “The products and innovations that we’re looking to release over the next year and beyond are going to add so much value for our members, covering more of their financial journey and helping even more people.” It turns out that Chime, the midwest, and Charles may be more well-suited for one another than any of us could have realized.