What is the interview process like for software engineers at Nubank?

Nubank was born to fight complexity and empower people. We use technology, design and data science to create amazing products and services that give back to customers control over their finances – and combine that with outstanding customer support which is both human and efficient.  

As engineers play a big role in our company, we are constantly looking for talents to join our international team – and, as everything we do at Nubank, our recruiting process also reflects our values.  

We’ve created a process focused on both guaranteeing a good experience for every candidate and allowing us to learn more about each applicant.  

This is how it goes: 

The first step is applying to a position on our career page. 

There, candidates can import information straight from LinkedIn, upload their CVs, and add other types of documents while also answering some initial questions – such as the very basic “why are you interested in joining Nubank”. 

At this stage, we are interested in learning about the candidate’s previous experiences – perhaps she hasn’t had any experience with Clojure in the past, but has faced interesting challenges that could be similar to the type of problems we are tackling. 

We also like to understand the candidate’s motivations – which is why we ask everyone to be transparent about their expectations in joining Nubank. After all, our reality must fit the type of challenges that drives you. 

People approved in the first phase are invited to a remote interview with either a recruiter or a fellow engineer. At this stage, we hope to:

• Understand more about the candidates, their professional backgrounds, which are their technical skills and what are they looking for in terms of career; 
• Explain how we apply function programming at Nubank;
• Talk about the dynamics of our cross-functional teams;
• Understand how they feel about diversity in the workplace.

More than an interview, this talk is meant to be a transparent conversation between Nubank and the candidates – this is the time to get to know one another and share our expectations. 

After the remote interview, we send candidates a technical exercise and usually give them around 10 days to finish it.

Exercises vary according to the position, but they all have the same goal: simulate part of what we face every day at Nubank.

Everyone approved in the technical exercise moves forward to the next phase: spending one morning or afternoon in our office to:

• Undergo a series of interviews with our People & Culture team and talk about more specific technical and cultural aspects of working at Nubank;
• Do a pairing exercise with one of our engineers;
• Do a team-exercise about architectural design;

At this stage, we are interested in understanding how the candidate work in pairs, listen to their ideas and seeing how they act in situations very similar to those experienced by our teams daily. 

We are very happy to extend a job offer to everyone approved in the final stage! If the candidate accepts, we arrange all the details for the starting date and the onboarding – an immersion in our culture, business and technology. 

The onboarding is meant to provide every tool a Nubanker needs to begin working with us and contribute to our challenges! 

Rodrigo Gaião, Tech Recruiter at Nubank, and Heloisa Carbone, software engineer, give some advice on what can help in the recruiting process.

“One good advice is to watch all the material we have available in our Nubank On The Stage channel. Don’t focus only on Clojure, but also explore our content on architecture, squad work, and other technical aspects. Besides, it is also important to understand how other teams work – and there is plenty of material available in our product and design blogs. Learning about Clojure always helps (there is a free e-book available online), as checking out Nubank’s Github page.”

Rodrigo Gaião, Tech Recruiter at Nubank

“Take a chance and apply, even if you feel that you are not ready yet. I’ve heard so many people say that they haven’t applied for not feeling qualified enough… I myself wasn’t feeling 100% ready, but everything worked out. Another important tip: study. Do some research on the technologies we use at Nubank. And, above all: more than specific technical knowledge, it is very important to interact, talk and share your ideas.”

Heloisa Carbone, software engineer