From being a customer of 11 years to making a real impact as an Engineering Lead, Emanuele Blanco shares his journey to joining Wise, what keeps him motivated, and his advice for anyone looking to apply for a role here 🚀

Discover more about Emanuele’s journey below ⬇️

Tell us a bit about your background and how you got into Engineering

I’ve been a Wise customer for around 11 years now. As an expat who moved to the UK from Italy, I was looking for ways to send money back home and realised there was a real gap in the market with banks charging hidden fees. Once Wise was established, I joined as a customer and my first payment was actually for my wedding venue deposit in Italy! 

In 2022, I was approached by a recruiter, and having known about Wise from a customer standpoint, I was immediately interested as it gave me the opportunity to help millions of customers with something that impacted me day to day. 

What does your typical day look like?

I'm constantly working across multiple teams in Product, Design, Analytics, and Recruitment, focusing on cross-team collaboration to tackle our biggest priorities. What I love is the mix of strategic forward-thinking and immediate problem-solving, whether that's responding to a customer incident or implementing platform changes. 

A huge part of my role also involves interviewing for engineering positions, which I absolutely love. I believe hiring is one of the highest-leverage activities you can do in any company. An interview is an opportunity to get someone really special in the team that will make an impact, so being a part of this process is extremely rewarding. At Wise, our company culture is built on great people, so every interview is an opportunity to bring someone truly special onto the team - and given our rapid growth and expansion, this has never been more important.

You’ve recently relocated to Singapore, what’s exciting about this move?

Relocating to Singapore has given me the chance to work more closely with our engineers based here. By relocating here, I’m better able to understand the problems our customers in APAC face. The APAC region is one of the most diverse in terms of currencies and payments, and being able to understand the culture and market by living here is key to solving the right problems. 

What’s something you’ve worked on in the past that has made a difference to our customers?

I've led the Send and Onboarding functions to ensure a seamless and secure onboarding and money transfer experience. Recently, we improved the process for changing phone numbers in the app. Instead of the need to contact our customer service team, customers can now update their number using face biometrics, enhancing convenience and security. 

Every time I use the Wise app and see a feature that my team has shipped, I feel incredibly proud that I've helped make that happen - there's something special about seeing your team solve hard technical problems and then helping them understand what the underlying issues were and how they tackled them. 

What keeps you at Wise?

I learn something new every day from all the individuals I work with, and I also get the opportunity to teach and share what I know with others. This creates an incredible feedback loop that helps us all improve as individuals.

As well as this, we aren't done yet - only 5% of worldwide money moves through Wise, which means we're far from finished and that excites me. I really care about ensuring people don't have to pay more than they should for sending money abroad, and the more I can help make that happen, the better.

What advice would you give to someone looking to apply to Wise?

We don't just want engineers - we want people who genuinely care about our product and are passionate about improving and enhancing it for our customers. At Wise, we don't take things for granted or assume something is true just because "that's how it's always been done" - everything can be challenged, and you can drive real change in our processes if you have data to support your ideas. It's all about thinking critically about what we're really trying to solve and taking ownership of your work.

I see many people struggle with imposter syndrome before applying to Wise and I’d encourage anyone experiencing this to take time to understand what we do, why we care about what we do, and see if this ignites something in you. If it does, then you’re already ahead of many candidates and I’d encourage you to apply.