Becoming an Engineer at Freetrade

Freetrade's mission, to get everyone investing, is only made possible by the work of our engineers. They are the builders, helping to support the hundreds of thousands of customers who already trust their money with us, all while creating the investing platform of the future.

We're always looking for talented, creative minds to join us. If you're interested, we hope you'll find this a helpful guide on what to expect during the interview process.

Initially, you’ll have a conversation with one of our Technology Talent Specialists to run through your experience, motivations, and explain the process in more detail. 

From there, the interviews take the following steps:

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Step 1 - Speak to a human

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Before writing a single line of code, you'll get a chance to speak to one of our Engineering Managers. They're really interested in what you've been working on and where you want your career to go next. They’ll also be able to answer any questions you may have about the culture, the tech stack, and anything else related to Engineering at Freetrade.

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Step 2 - Do some coding

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The next step is a 90 minute exercise, where you'll build a small project in a language of your choice. At Freetrade, we don't believe in brainteasers or reciting syntax on a whiteboard, so don't expect something from an interview textbook.

We're looking at how you can break down a problem and solve it with clean, simple, tested code. We’re also looking at how you talk through your thinking with us. When building production software, 90 minutes isn’t a long time, so you aren’t expected to finish all the requirements.

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Step 3 - A system design challenge

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In the next hour, you’ll be asked to design a solution to one of our design challenges. This means taking the requirements, drawing an architecture diagram, and talking through it with our engineers.

The design challenges reflect the kind of problems we have to solve when we build new features at Freetrade. When we think about a new feature, we have to consider how it will work, but also how it will be supported, and how it will perform at scale.

Our team is looking to see what you know about distributed systems, but they’re equally interested in how you communicate your thoughts and ideas. The system design process at Freetrade is very collaborative, so we’re looking for people who bring out great discussions.

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Step 4 - Values

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Building a great product requires a great team, and it’s important that everyone who joins not only fits in, but adds to the culture at Freetrade. During this 1-hour session, you’ll sit down with a member of the team (not from Engineering), to talk about topics such as: how you like to work, challenges you’ve overcome in your career, and lessons learned from your mistakes. 

We also want to know how you’ve demonstrated our core values throughout your career - our core values are Candour, Curiosity, Focus, Grit, and Humility - and we think they’re vital to excelling here at Freetrade

And that’s it! 4 simple steps to joining the team here at Freetrade! Below, we’ve included some interview tips, and a bit of information around timelines and accessibility: 

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Interview tips

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• Go through our website and read our content - our blog gives some great insights into our tech stack, as well as what it’s like to work here at Freetrade! 
• If you can, download the app and give it a try. The more you understand our product, the deeper conversations we can have throughout the process.
• Read all interview preparation carefully. We’ll always try and set you up for success throughout the interviews, so look out for tips and hints. 
• Ask questions! This is not a one-way interview, and everyone is happy to talk about Freetrade.
• Be yourself. We want to learn what it would be like working with you day-to-day. 
• If in doubt, speak to our Talent Specialists! Their role is to guide you through the process and ensure the experience is a positive one. So, if you have any questions throughout, feel free to reach out. 

We don’t want to waste your time, so we aim to be as transparent as possible with our timings - to speed up the process, we tend to book interviews in blocks, combining the technical elements into a single session, as well as the Values and Final interviews. That said, this process is fairly fluid. 

We’re committed to ensuring our interviews are accessible to everyone, and we are more than happy to try and accommodate any requests.

So, if you are keen to join us here on our journey, or just keen to find out more about our opportunities and how you can fit in, please feel free to apply directly to our roles, or email our Talent Team to arrange an exploratory conversation: 

• https://freetrade.io/careers
• talent@freetrade.io