Me postulé a través de un reclutador. Acudí a una entrevista en Revolut en abr 2021
Entrevista
The recruitment process involves 3 steps, one basic technical interview with recruiter, one coding challenge and last one which is a mix between
coding challenge and some questions (Database isolation levels, microservices, optimistic versus pessimistic concurrency control).
Regarding the talk with recruiter or even the first challenge was a good enough experience.
Regarding the 3 interview was far from being a good experience. An interview should be something positive, it should be in some way a discussion between engineers
of best approaches to achieve an goal/solve an issue. This is not possible with current revolut's engineers, they think you are able to see what is in their mind so they do not guide you
or even ask the questions in a clear way.
Regarding their feedback, well there is only one word to describe it useless, I have more than 10 years working as senior software engineer
and doing concurrency code mostly in java(yes I have read Java concurrency in practice several times). Concurrency, is recognized by the experts, as being one of more difficult subjects to get it right which means that you should have some time to think during implementation so we can go through all possibles flows and evaluate
if any of them can be a problem(interleaving of several flows). During an interview this is not an easy task we have a mix of emotions and stress of interview context.
Revolut engineers don't take that into consideration, in fact for them the issue is very clear since they are probably reusing the same problem for all interviews(they are really smart :)).
I really would love to see some code from these brilliant engineers.
Considering glassdoor reviews, I think in the end was probably the best thing to happen to me since I would not love to work with this kind of engineers or in a company rating so low in culture and values.
Advises:
You have several complains about engineers doing the 3 step perhaps your management should start thinking about it. For interviews you need good engineers but they should have strong
people skills. A second approach would be to have robots doing the interview, I mean if the questions were programmed in a clear way, probably would bring a best experience for candidates.
at least would be more objective.
Avoid having arrogant engineers doing interviews, the candidates should feel comfortable doing the interview.
Preguntas de entrevista [1]
Pregunta 1
Write a LoadBalancer and test it. Here you need to remember a few thinks mostly strategy pattern and also related concurrent issues.
The experience was similar to what has already been described by others. I passed the first two stages but did not pass the system design interview.
My first attempt was definitely on me — I was not prepared well enough. I took the feedback seriously, prepared much better for the second attempt, and expected a more balanced evaluation. However, the second system design interview felt frustrating because the interviewer repeatedly guided the discussion toward minor or less important parts of the design, which consumed a significant amount of time and prevented me from properly covering the core architecture and trade-offs.
Overall, the process was useful, but the system design stage felt inconsistent and highly dependent on the interviewer’s style.
Preguntas de entrevista [1]
Pregunta 1
Live coding:
Implement a load balancer.
Implement an account ledger.
SD:
apartment booking system
card delivery system
Me postulé a través de un reclutador. Acudí a una entrevista en Revolut
Entrevista
The experience was disappointing and reflected a lack of professionalism.
The interaction gave the impression of a disorganised or potentially unhealthy work culture.
Answered most of the questions accurately and to the best of my ability.
The interview was initially scheduled for a short time slot. Toward the end, the interviewer asked for my availability and indicated that they would schedule a follow-up session to continue the discussion. However, no further communication or follow-up was received.
Me postulé en línea. El proceso tomó 5 días. Acudí a una entrevista en Revolut en may 2026
Entrevista
During the initial HR screening call, the recruiter explicitly stated that Revolut was not hiring for a specific team and that team fit would be determined only after the coding and system design stages.
However, after passing the screening, I received the following rejection message: “After carefully reviewing your experience, we've decided to move forward with candidates whose profiles more closely align with the specific requirements of the role. Please note that this decision is based on current team needs.”
This creates a clear inconsistency in the communication. If team allocation and specific requirements were to be evaluated only in later technical rounds, a rejection citing “current team needs” right after screening appears contradictory. Such practices can lead to candidates investing time in the interview process based on incomplete or misleading information at the early stage.