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.

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.