Wise

For software engineering specifically, the firm details five distinct interview formats on its careers site (backend pair programming, backend system design, front-end pair programming, front-end system design, and an engineering product round); the technical stage draws from this set. Most interviews run on Zoom, with optional in-person sessions on request. The loop is short and codified by Wise's own published standards, which means preparation should target the firm's specific paired-coding format rather than the open-ended on-site days more typical of larger banks or consultancies.

Wise's WiseStart early-careers track covers three distinct entry routes:

• Summer internships: 10 paid weeks for students in the penultimate year of a Bachelors or Masters. Streams include Software Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, Design and others; the 2026 London cohort runs 22 June to 28 August.
• Graduate roles: full-time positions with a global September start date, open to students in their final year or up to one year post-graduation. Named programmes include a 9-month Engineering Academy preceded by an Engineering Bootcamp, a 2-year Legal rotation through Privacy and Company Secretarial functions, and a Finance track that pursues the ICAEW Chartered Accountant Level 7 apprenticeship qualification.
• Apprenticeships: based in London (delivered with training provider BPP) and São Paulo (delivered with Nube), in People and Engineering teams.

For a candidate without a finished degree, the apprenticeship route is the only one of the three that runs through a third-party training provider rather than Wise's own portal, so applications go to BPP or Nube directly.

For a non-UK or non-EU candidate, the practical route into Wise's UK summer intern cohort is therefore the post-study Graduate visa (open to those completing a UK degree); this is a gate that decides whether the UK intern stream is open at all, before any of the standard application work is worth doing.

First, the firm operates from six offices – Budapest, London, Austin, Singapore, São Paulo and Tallinn – and recruits campus talent into all of them, not only the London headquarters; this is a wider geographic spread than most UK-listed fintechs offer at the analyst level. Second, the firm is FCA-authorised under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 (Firm Reference 900507) and has been publicly traded since its direct listing on the LSE on 7 July 2021, moving its primary listing to Nasdaq on 11 May 2026 while retaining a secondary LSE listing – campus hires are joining a regulated, publicly traded company rather than a private-stage start-up, which changes both the compliance environment and the equity-compensation arithmetic. Third, the campus programmes are unusually structured for a fintech: the 9-month Engineering Academy, the 2-year Legal rotation, and the Finance track building toward an ICAEW qualification mean a graduate offer here functions more like a traditional bank's grad scheme than the typical start-up onboarding. The trade-off for a candidate weighing Wise against a private-stage fintech is structure and regulatory exposure on one side, equity upside on the other.