I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Wise (Tallin) in Mar 2025
Interview
1-) Initial screening call,
2-) Pair programming (tech interview),
3-) System design (tech interview)
Long story short: Wise may be the only company so far in my applicatons that has been:
+ Completely transparent,
+ Had an tech interview that focuses on actual real world problems. Not trivia or leetcode style challenges.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- In screening: goals and career history
- pair programming: a simple cache programming
- tech design: with excalidraw style web graph tool, they asked me to implement design for a specific problem that relies on event driven architecture and data buckets
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Wise (Budapest)
Interview
Only got to the initial screening. There would have been at least one more after the hiring manager that I know of. It was a pretty standard screening interview. Nothing out of the ordinary.
1. Screening Call
2. Hiring Manager Interview
3. Interview with Engineering Manager and a Product person
4. Case study Presentation in the office
5. Interview with other two mid-level product team members
6. They asked for a reference which I provided
7. They did not contact the reference I provided
8. Result: "Sorry we cannot hire you because you did not show how you work in a cross-functional team environment"... Something I was not made aware I needed to demonstrate, nor was I asked to give examples of!
9. I asked for another call to show examples demonstrating that skill, but they refused as the decision was made!
Ghost Jobs by Wise.... Be aware!!!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions around: Give me example(s) of how you solved a problem similar to what we have here about this and that. Classic market research for free style.