Monzo

Android Engineer Interview Experience - London, United Kingdom

November 5, 2018

Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I applied online. The process took two weeks.

After the initial call, I was asked to write a small Android application as a coding assignment. The assignment was very close to a real work situation where you inherit a half-done project from some other developer that is full of bugs and crashes and a design that is nowhere near finished. Your job is to fix the project and work your way towards the requested specs. You don't have a specific time deadline, and you can work on it up to four hours.

The on-site interview consisted of three one-hour-long interviews with different groups of the company. There is an Android, a Computer Science, and a Product section in this. The Android one asks some way of how you would implement a specific spec, and some RxJava questions. The team works very closely with RxJava, and even though it is not clear on the job description, you will be asked and scored on questions about the said framework. Focus on RxJava and talks the team has done in the past, and you'll be fine.

Questions

What is wrong in this RxJava pipeline?

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 2 interview experiences for the Monzo Android Engineer role in London, United Kingdom.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

Monzo's interview process for their Android Engineer roles in London, the United Kingdom is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive50%

Neutral0%

Negative50%

Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Monzo's Android Engineer interview process in London, United Kingdom.

Monzo Work Experiences

Top tier

iOS Engineer • Former Employee

November 23, 2023

Pros: There is a good culture. There is flexible working. There is a good mission.

Cons: You have to wear many hats outside your specialty sometimes.

iOS Engineer • Former Employee

November 23, 2023

Pros: There is a good culture. There is flexible working. There is a good mission.

Cons: You have to wear many hats outside your specialty sometimes.

Good

Dev Ops Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: There is free beer in the kitchen.

Cons: Lunch breaks are quite short.

Dev Ops Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: There is free beer in the kitchen.

Cons: Lunch breaks are quite short.

Meat grinder, avoid and save your mental health

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: I have nothing positive to say

Cons: I've worked as a software engineer at several companies and Monzo has been my worst experience by far. I was miserable every single day I worked there and it negatively impacted my mental health. If work isn't the most important aspect of your life and you aren't okay with working late almost everyday then this isn't the right job for you. - Unrealistic expectations, there's a huge amount of pressure to deliver quickly with no recognition. If you cause one incident it will haunt you in performance reviews while all the good work you've done is ignored. It felt like I was doing 2 jobs at once and when I wasn't at work I was stressed / anxious about going back to work, this began to affect my mental health. Most people on my team seemed to usually start work around 8am and finish at 6:30pm. My team lead seemed to work until late every evening and submitted PRs at 11pm. - Toxic Culture, the comments here about the company feeling like a cult are all on the mark. If you're not in the clique your thoughts and feelings are ignored. Monzo is worshipped as a benevolent entity, it cannot be criticised and neither can the 'Monzo way of doing things' (reinventing the wheel). You will feel like an imposter (because to them, that's what you are!) -Monzo fails diversity when it comes to hiring from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't accepted socially because I didn't get a degree from a red brick institution. - Hire to fire policy, you are made to compete with your team instead of collaborate with them. Everything goes into dataland and your manager will compare how mang deployments and PRs you ship compared to the rest of your team. If you are the lowest performer on your team you will be put on a PIP. This is how unwanted people are quietly pushed out of the company, it's taboo to discuss people getting pushed out also. - Oncall is a joke, I pushed into doing it by management and was on call for things I'd never worked on. - Very difficult to find information, most of the time the rest of my team ignored questions. Everything is on Notion and the Notion search is terrible. You will spend a lot of time searching Slack to find links to Notion pages which hopefully won't be too out of date. Judging by the onboarding experience, you're just expected to know everything on Day 1 so you won't be needing the documentation to do your job 🙃 - No bonuses and low pay rises.

Meat grinder, avoid and save your mental health

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: I have nothing positive to say

Cons: I've worked as a software engineer at several companies and Monzo has been my worst experience by far. I was miserable every single day I worked there and it negatively impacted my mental health. If work isn't the most important aspect of your life and you aren't okay with working late almost everyday then this isn't the right job for you. - Unrealistic expectations, there's a huge amount of pressure to deliver quickly with no recognition. If you cause one incident it will haunt you in performance reviews while all the good work you've done is ignored. It felt like I was doing 2 jobs at once and when I wasn't at work I was stressed / anxious about going back to work, this began to affect my mental health. Most people on my team seemed to usually start work around 8am and finish at 6:30pm. My team lead seemed to work until late every evening and submitted PRs at 11pm. - Toxic Culture, the comments here about the company feeling like a cult are all on the mark. If you're not in the clique your thoughts and feelings are ignored. Monzo is worshipped as a benevolent entity, it cannot be criticised and neither can the 'Monzo way of doing things' (reinventing the wheel). You will feel like an imposter (because to them, that's what you are!) -Monzo fails diversity when it comes to hiring from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't accepted socially because I didn't get a degree from a red brick institution. - Hire to fire policy, you are made to compete with your team instead of collaborate with them. Everything goes into dataland and your manager will compare how mang deployments and PRs you ship compared to the rest of your team. If you are the lowest performer on your team you will be put on a PIP. This is how unwanted people are quietly pushed out of the company, it's taboo to discuss people getting pushed out also. - Oncall is a joke, I pushed into doing it by management and was on call for things I'd never worked on. - Very difficult to find information, most of the time the rest of my team ignored questions. Everything is on Notion and the Notion search is terrible. You will spend a lot of time searching Slack to find links to Notion pages which hopefully won't be too out of date. Judging by the onboarding experience, you're just expected to know everything on Day 1 so you won't be needing the documentation to do your job 🙃 - No bonuses and low pay rises.

Top tier

iOS Engineer • Former Employee

November 23, 2023

Pros: There is a good culture. There is flexible working. There is a good mission.

Cons: You have to wear many hats outside your specialty sometimes.

5.0
Top tier
iOS Engineer • Former Employee
November 23, 2023
Pros: There is a good culture. There is flexible working. There is a good mission.
Cons: You have to wear many hats outside your specialty sometimes.

Good

Dev Ops Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: There is free beer in the kitchen.

Cons: Lunch breaks are quite short.

3.0
Good
Dev Ops Engineer • Current Employee
March 7, 2021
Pros: There is free beer in the kitchen.
Cons: Lunch breaks are quite short.

Meat grinder, avoid and save your mental health

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: I have nothing positive to say

Cons: I've worked as a software engineer at several companies and Monzo has been my worst experience by far. I was miserable every single day I worked there and it negatively impacted my mental health. If work isn't the most important aspect of your life and you aren't okay with working late almost everyday then this isn't the right job for you. - Unrealistic expectations, there's a huge amount of pressure to deliver quickly with no recognition. If you cause one incident it will haunt you in performance reviews while all the good work you've done is ignored. It felt like I was doing 2 jobs at once and when I wasn't at work I was stressed / anxious about going back to work, this began to affect my mental health. Most people on my team seemed to usually start work around 8am and finish at 6:30pm. My team lead seemed to work until late every evening and submitted PRs at 11pm. - Toxic Culture, the comments here about the company feeling like a cult are all on the mark. If you're not in the clique your thoughts and feelings are ignored. Monzo is worshipped as a benevolent entity, it cannot be criticised and neither can the 'Monzo way of doing things' (reinventing the wheel). You will feel like an imposter (because to them, that's what you are!) -Monzo fails diversity when it comes to hiring from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't accepted socially because I didn't get a degree from a red brick institution. - Hire to fire policy, you are made to compete with your team instead of collaborate with them. Everything goes into dataland and your manager will compare how mang deployments and PRs you ship compared to the rest of your team. If you are the lowest performer on your team you will be put on a PIP. This is how unwanted people are quietly pushed out of the company, it's taboo to discuss people getting pushed out also. - Oncall is a joke, I pushed into doing it by management and was on call for things I'd never worked on. - Very difficult to find information, most of the time the rest of my team ignored questions. Everything is on Notion and the Notion search is terrible. You will spend a lot of time searching Slack to find links to Notion pages which hopefully won't be too out of date. Judging by the onboarding experience, you're just expected to know everything on Day 1 so you won't be needing the documentation to do your job 🙃 - No bonuses and low pay rises.

1.0
Meat grinder, avoid and save your mental health
Software Engineer • Former Employee
July 4, 2024
Pros: I have nothing positive to say
Cons: I've worked as a software engineer at several companies and Monzo has been my worst experience by far. I was miserable every single day I worked there and it negatively impacted my mental health. If work isn't the most important aspect of your life and you aren't okay with working late almost everyday then this isn't the right job for you. - Unrealistic expectations, there's a huge amount of pressure to deliver quickly with no recognition. If you cause one incident it will haunt you in performance reviews while all the good work you've done is ignored. It felt like I was doing 2 jobs at once and when I wasn't at work I was stressed / anxious about going back to work, this began to affect my mental health. Most people on my team seemed to usually start work around 8am and finish at 6:30pm. My team lead seemed to work until late every evening and submitted PRs at 11pm. - Toxic Culture, the comments here about the company feeling like a cult are all on the mark. If you're not in the clique your thoughts and feelings are ignored. Monzo is worshipped as a benevolent entity, it cannot be criticised and neither can the 'Monzo way of doing things' (reinventing the wheel). You will feel like an imposter (because to them, that's what you are!) -Monzo fails diversity when it comes to hiring from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't accepted socially because I didn't get a degree from a red brick institution. - Hire to fire policy, you are made to compete with your team instead of collaborate with them. Everything goes into dataland and your manager will compare how mang deployments and PRs you ship compared to the rest of your team. If you are the lowest performer on your team you will be put on a PIP. This is how unwanted people are quietly pushed out of the company, it's taboo to discuss people getting pushed out also. - Oncall is a joke, I pushed into doing it by management and was on call for things I'd never worked on. - Very difficult to find information, most of the time the rest of my team ignored questions. Everything is on Notion and the Notion search is terrible. You will spend a lot of time searching Slack to find links to Notion pages which hopefully won't be too out of date. Judging by the onboarding experience, you're just expected to know everything on Day 1 so you won't be needing the documentation to do your job 🙃 - No bonuses and low pay rises.

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