Process
My interview experience was extremely disappointing and felt like a complete waste of time. The environment came across as toxic from the very beginning and did not reflect well on the company’s culture.
After the initial call, I received a preparation document stating that my past projects would not be judged. However, during the interview, the interviewer did the opposite, criticizing decisions made by my previous company rather than focusing on my role or contributions. From that point on, it felt like they weren’t interested in anything I said. The conversation quickly shifted into detailed questions about internal implementations of Kafka and Postgres, which didn’t align with the preparation material at all.
What made the experience even worse was the interviewer’s attitude. They were visibly dismissive from the very first minute, which made the entire interview feel humiliating. Although it was clear I wasn’t moving forward, I was told I would hear back in a week. That update never came, and they simply ghosted me. Meanwhile, a friend who passed received a same-day response.
Overall, it was a disappointing and discouraging process. If the company doesn’t intend to move forward with a candidate, the least they could do is communicate respectfully and avoid misleading preparation materials or unnecessary humiliation. I invested a significant amount of time preparing, and it felt completely wasted.
Questions
How is idempotency implemented in Kafka and Postgres? How do you communicate progress to stakeholders?
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 48 interview experiences for the Monzo Software Engineer role.
Success Rate
Monzo's interview process for their Software Engineer roles is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Monzo's Software Engineer interview process.
Monzo Work Experiences
- 5.0GreatSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeLondon, EnglandJune 27, 2025Pros: It is a good place to learn lots.Cons: There are not too many to be honest.
- 5.0Great as a mid level engineerSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeLondon, EnglandJuly 24, 2024Pros: Great tech and super smart people.Cons: Some teams can get you working on a pretty narrow range of stuff.
- 1.0Meat grinder, avoid and save your mental healthSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeJuly 4, 2024Pros: I have nothing positive to sayCons: 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.
