Recruiter screen assessing experience and fit, etc.

Domain-specific interview focusing on specific aspects of the job, situational questions on past experience.

System design exercise (HackerRank remote whiteboarding).

The screening and domain-specific rounds were great; they gave me a good feel for the company and the nature of the work, and I progressed through with very positive feedback.

Unfortunately, for the next stage, I was put through a generic system design round which had zero relevance to the role I was interviewing for, and for which I had less than 24 hours to prepare once I was told the format.

Unsurprisingly, I wasted my own time and that of the two engineers politely humouring me through the exercise whilst I crashed and burned.

A standard rejection email arrived quickly afterwards, and Wise was permanently added to my "don't bother" list.

It's depressing that in the current market, employers are still rejecting proven-qualified candidates on arbitrary and inflexible steps like this.

Design a system for processing international money transfers.