My Career Journey as a Graduate Software Engineer at Wise
Why I joined Wise
I am a L2 engineer who joined Wise as a graduate engineer in the middle of 2021 right after finishing university. One question I’m frequently asked is why I chose Wise to start my career.
A few things about Wise stood out to me.
Firstly, Wise is all about building great products that directly impact users and achieving the mission of money without borders, which is incredibly rewarding. Secondly, Wise has a really open and diverse culture, so we get to work with people from all over the world and feel valued and respected. And most importantly, Wise has a clear career advancement roadmap for engineers.
My Work
At Wise, I work as a regional product engineer for the East Asia region. Our primary tech stack is Java Spring boot. My team focuses on expanding and customising our product to fit the needs of our market. One of the projects I’ve worked on was adding a feature that allows customers to send Chinese Yuan to WeChat wallet, which is a popular mobile payment option.
To make this happen, my team collaborated with the product manager and an external partner to define the feature requirements. Once the requirements were defined, engineers from different teams and across two companies worked together to build the solution within the Wise ecosystem.
We also coordinated with the operations team for discussing monitoring metrics and how to mitigate potential production issues. After the feature was launched, we iterated on it based on customers feedback and our success metrics.
For example, after pushing a feature to production, we learned that customers weren’t aware that recipients of a transfer needed to link their bank card to receive money. To prevent confusion, we added notifications and a link to inform customers about this requirement. As regional product engineers we are given the ownership to ensure the success of our product in our region.
My Growth at Wise
As an engineer here at Wise, I have received great support from my manager. They listen to my goals and try their best to match me with projects that would help me grow and challenge myself. They provide the necessary support whenever I need it and push me beyond the expectations for the engineering level I’m on.
Additionally, Wise also provides a personal development budget for every Wisers to continually learn and upskill. Most people will use the budget to buy books or enrol in online courses which can help them pick up skills that are applicable to their work.
Company Culture
I think the culture at Wise is employee-friendly and fun. Other than work, there are plenty of informal and fun activities for everyone to join. In the Singapore office, we often have sports gatherings like badminton and volleyball sessions. We also have office lunches twice a week and Friday drinks sessions.
Once a year we have a company-wide Mission – Day conference where all Wisers come together from around the globe to celebrate the progress towards our mission, ‘Money without borders’. We discuss new ideas to accelerate our growth. These activities play a big role in making sure that work is not mundane or boring. They give us the chance to meet people from other teams, learn about different roles, and build our network.
A photo of me with Kristo, our CEO during Mission days.
At Wise, we have a hybrid working policy. This gives me the flexibility to work from the office or at home depending on my commitments. It’s great to be in the office and around my team. There are often more chances to cross collaborate with different teams, which helps with my personal growth. I also love that I can work from home, where I can get my head down and concentrate on a project without any distractions.
We can work remotely from almost anywhere in the world for 90 days a year. This is called our ‘Mobile Wise program’. It gives me the flexibility to travel and experience living and working abroad, just like many of our customers.
It has been a fulfilling journey so far, and I’m thankful for the opportunities that have been given to me at Wise. I look forward to more years of growing as an engineer and an individual here at Wise.
