I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Wise (London, England) in Dec 2022
Interview
One of the poorest interviews I've ever had unfortunately. Interviewers were disengaged, un-collaborative and had poor communication skills. Wise looks like a great company on the outside and I hope this was a one off but my experience was not great at all. The interview was a brief introduction followed by a "code challenge", which for an engineering lead I was expecting something more involved than writing a service class that took an input of two strings, doing a Hashmap lookup, or calling an API if not found in the map and returning the result. Granted there were some follow ups with regard to scale and availability but this only scratched the surface of what I would expect a real life day to day responsibilities of an Engineering Lead to look like. Communication was also poor when asking questions about the make up of what being an engineer at Wise looks like and also what the interview process looked like from here on out. The HR screening call also said there would be a second part of the interview where there would be a focus on my experiences of scaling applications and processes, this never happened. I would be extremely concerned at the skill level of Engineering Leadership at Wise if this is bar to be at the level that this role is for. I'll give this stage the benefit of the doubt and hope it was a one off, but if you are interviewing at this level, be aware you may find yourself a bit surprised. I'd expect this type of code challenge for a junior/mid-weight developer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The code challenge itself was to write a Currency Converter that receives two strings for a "From" currency and a "To" currency. The task is to build a service or class that wraps around an already implemented API to return the response in the most appropriate way.
I applied online. I interviewed at Wise (London, England)
Interview
I applied through online and next day got the reply to schedule interview.
HR was very friendly, explained roles and responsiblities for the Enginnering Lead position.But HR not ready to listen my answers
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Wise (London, England) in Apr 2026
Interview
HR is really communicative, and engage well with a post-decline feedback session. The pair programming round had an engaged pairing partner. Subsequent round would have been system design.
I thought the pairing went well, and received feedback at the end of that call that it was better than most senior IC candidates. But ultimately wasn't enough.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Implement a circuit-breaker type solution on hacker rank.
I applied online. I interviewed at Wise in Mar 2026
Interview
Engineering Lead —| London | March 2026
Process: Recruiter screen → Engineering Lead interview (stage 2)
The recruiter was responsive and well-prepared. Stage 2 was a conversation with the hiring Engineering Lead covering my background, leadership experience, team management approach, handling underperformers, and motivations for joining Wise. All reasonable and relevant questions for the role.
I came prepared, gave structured answers grounded in real examples from leading engineering teams across regulated financial services — Open Banking, payments modernisation, cloud-native migration. The conversation felt engaged and positive. I was told feedback would be passed to the recruiter and I'd hear about next steps.
I didn't progress. No feedback was given.
This was only stage 2 — I hadn't even reached the technical rounds. Being screened out at this point with no explanation of what fell short is genuinely difficult to process. A brief, honest summary of where the bar wasn't met would have been far more valuable than silence — not just for closure, but to know what to improve.
Wise presents itself as a transparent, mission-driven company. That value should extend to how candidates are treated in the process, not just customers.
The role and team seemed genuinely interesting. I'd still consider Wise in future — but the feedback gap is a real blind spot worth addressing.