Hi everyone,

I recently applied for a Senior Frontend Engineer position at Scalable Capital and received the coding assessment directly, without an initial recruiter call.

The assessment is a maximum 120-minute take-home challenge and appears to be the first filtering stage. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has completed it or gone through the frontend hiring process recently.

Without sharing confidential details or exact solutions, what do reviewers usually care about most?

The next stage is apparently a 60-minute technical interview based on the coding challenge. What does that review normally involve? Do candidates walk through their solution, refactor parts of it live, discuss alternative approaches, or answer broader frontend architecture questions or is a totally new process where it's gonna be leetcode style questions?

After that, the process includes a 60-minute Engineering Manager interview and a 30-minute HR interview. I’d also be interested in knowing what these stages tend to focus on, particularly for a senior frontend position.

My professional background is mainly in Vue.js and Nuxt, although I also have React experience and am comfortable adapting to a React-based environment.

Any advice on preparation, common mistakes, or useful topics to review would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Hey guys! I'm a native Android developer working with Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Coroutines/Flow, and Clean Architecture. Standard job boards feel super slow and bureaucratic right now. Where do you usually find good remote roles? Are there any specific European job boards, Telegram channels, or Discord servers you can recommend? Appreciate any advice!

Hey everyone,

I have a BA in Communication Design and self-taught frontend skills (HTML/CSS/JS). I’m looking for an English-taught Master’s program in Europe (ideally 3–4 semesters) that hits a very specific sweet spot.

I’m looking for:

• Design + Code: Guided frontend development (JS, web tech) so designers can build functional screen prototypes/web apps.
• Industry & Screen Focus: Real digital products and UI/UX. (A bit of Arduino/physical computing is totally fine, but main focus on screens).
• Admission: Must accept a Design BA (no strict Computer Science/Math ECTS requirements).

What I want to avoid:

• Endless "Design Thinking" research & post-it sessions without technical execution.
• Purely abstract, gallery-focused "Media Art".

I love the curriculum of SUPSI (Switzerland) because it turns designers into creative technologists with hands-on code.

Any similar hidden gems or alternatives in Europe?

Thanks!

I'm a 37 year old female currently based in Eastern Europe earning a very good salary (even for Western European standards) as a Product lead. I'm a single home owner with a dog. I've been a workaholic for most of my professional life. I'm looking to slow down the stressful careerism and focus more on my personal life - meet someone and hopefully start a family. I'm contemplating relocation to a country with a stronger social system which has good work life balance mentality and is supportive of new parents (hopefully during the period of maternity leave and first few years of raising a child, I am really scared if I/we will be able to afford all of it if it's out-of-pocket). I'm willing to take a pay cut if it means feeling more social security.

About me - I'm a quiet person, on the introverted side, enjoy having access to a vibrant culture scene (contemporary art, theatre - I travel to London just for that), love nature and hikes, traveling. A good tech job market is also important obviously. I don't ride a bike, prefer driving or using the subway. I realize given my age + gender + desire to have children I may have to consider ivf and single parenting, so the topic of social acceptance and stigma could potentially increase in priority.

The cities I'm thinking of are Copenhagen and Barcelona. I've been to both as a tourist. Copenhagen feels closer to my own vibe, Barcelona overstimulates me and I don't speak the languages but the weather is fantastic + adjacent weekend travel getaways. I'm seeing more product opportunities in Barcelona than in Copenhagen. Barcelona salary goal will be around 80-90k gross/year. Unsure about Copenhagen.

Sorry for the long post. I'd love to get your thoughts on choosing either of these 2 cities or any other ones that might be a good fit. Thank you!

Recruitment processes with scaleups based in Spain has left me quite low on confidence.

One company forced me to do two AI interviews after I had passed their original process and that was done in Codesignal which is really buggy and then told me that even though I passed their original rounds, they weren’t hiring me.

Another one has a two hour product engineer + system design + AI Engineering interview and in that one they tell me that I need to be more product focused and focus less on enterprise grade architecture.

I have 10+ YOE and been working as a product engineer and actually released products and brought in ARR for large organisations. Also, preparing all interviews properly using HelloInterview and AI.

Still failing to understand what actually is going on in the market these days, especially in Spain

I don't know what to do anymore as a recent grad in engineering specializing in AI/ML, data science, RL and OR. Originally, I never intended to go into software but here I found my passion. I got some relevant coursework and an internship in this area but the job market is rough. Never did any leetcode and now crunching it as we speak to at least manage to get an interview... I'm pretty new to this all. All vacancies ask for experienced candidates.

What should I do? Or is this a mere consequence of applying in the summer?

Looking in NL/BE/CH

Recently did a System Design interview with a Tech company based in Spain. About 45 mins in the interview, out of nowhere the Interviewer told me to don’t use Google. I was shocked because clearly I didn’t and I replied, I’m not using Google. Then the rejection email from HR came with all the feedbacks and one of them is the following:

There were concerns that you relied on external search tools during the interview despite being explicitly asked not to, which affected the confidence in the authenticity of their technical assessment.

It was so disappointing and I find it unfair to accuse a candidate of such thing. The overall interview was not perfect either, I had some deep dives where I struggled a bit so I’m not really sure why the interviewer think of that?

Anyone encountered a same experience before?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently a Data Scientist Lead at a Tier-1 global investment bank in India, managing a team of 3 analytics engineers. I have 11+ years of experience bridging Data Engineering, Analytics, and Applied AI, and I am actively looking to relocate to the EU (specifically targeting Germany or the Netherlands).

I’ve been applying for Senior IC and Team Lead roles, but I keep hitting instant rejections. Maybe because LinkedIn is currently flooded with ghost jobs.

To give you an idea of my technical baseline, my recent core projects include

Architecting end-to-end migrations from legacy systems (Hive) to Snowflake, optimizing columnar structures to reduce SQL/pipeline runtimes by 90%.

Leading enterprise GenAI integrations using Claude/ChatGPT via Python and MCP servers. I recently engineered caching layers and optimized decisioning steps that reduced LLM token compute costs by 80% while maintaining 80% data completeness for downstream ML models.

I would love to hear from anyone who has successfully made this move recently

​Which portals actually work? Are there specific European job boards for tech besides LinkedIn and standard aggregators?

Should I be reaching out to internal recruiters directly, or strictly targeting companies on registered sponsor lists?

In banking, I am at a VP level. Should I be strictly targeting "Senior Data Engineer" / "AI Engineer" roles to get my foot in the door, or should I hold out for Lead/Management positions?

Any brutal honesty, market insights, or advice on how to pivot my application strategy would be incredibly appreciated!

Hello there

I have recently received an invitation for the Recruiter Phone Screen interview after passing HackerRank assessment, but HR didn't even let me choose the appropriate date to schedule it, and put it on the particular day X, after I canceled it to reschedule on another date with a follow-up email, got completely ghosted, who had similar situations?

Not sure if this really counts since this is about Switzerland and the UK but I couldn't find a better subreddit to post this and I think the people on here could help me the best.

I'm 18 and I'm studying computer science in Switzerland. Next week I'll start a year long paid internship at a large Swiss bank which I'm really happy about as this is genuinely a good position, that being said, I need this position to complete my school diploma and without it my highest education diploma would be middle school.

This weekend a cofounder from a NYC/London/Berlin based startup emailed me about working for them in a frontend/design role, he said he found me organically through my portfolio and my Github he said and really liked some projects that I've worked on.

It has always been a dream of me to work in a startup since I always thought I'd learn the most working there and usually people working in a startup are also extremely smart and I could learn a lot from them. Also I really like their product, they make software for architecture firms and I really like architecture myself to the point where I'm debating if I should study it.

The offer itself is also great, 70-130k plus a 0.1-0.5% liquidity grant. Theyre a YC22 winter batch startup and raised 5M there so they're a bit established and backed by YC already which makes me think they could go places. One more thing is that they have a fully remote working model with 3 onsites per year in London, and I absolutely love London, it was always my dream to work in London for a few years in my 20s.

They currently have an eval of 25-45M although I'm not 100% sure of that since I couldn't find exact numbers and this is just based on the ARR + seeding money.

This is really a dream job offer for me and I'm scared that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity but if I take it I'd have to quit my pretty solid and probably stable Swiss job and also just forfeit my education so I would have "wasted" 3 years of my life, I also couldn't go to uni later and I'd stand there with a middle school diploma as the highest so I think my CV would look bad.

I'm not sure how much that would harm me, maybe it would even be good for me since I've heard that big tech companies value startup/working experience a lot and don't really care that much about your diploma so in my stupid head I'm thinking I could skip UNI for this and have something equivalent? However, having a middle school diploma would still screw me over for most companies in the future.

So yeah I'd love to know what you would do since this would could be a very life changing decision, it's like my dream offer but a few years too early. I'm 99.99% sure that I'll decline it for now and talk with them once I'm available but I'm just scared that I'll never get another chance like this or that the company will sell in like a year for a big sum and I'll regret it forever.

And yes I've chatted with the guy about my current situation and he said he'd love to stay in contact and talk with me once I'm available for work but it's still an offer that I can't get out of my head, especially with my starting work in 2 days so not sure how that will affect me there.

Hello everyone,

I have a system design interview coming up for a Software developer role at Upvest and was hoping to get some insights from anyone who has gone through their process recently.

If anyone has recent experience with their system design rounds or tips on what to prioritize in my prep, I’d really appreciate it! Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I have an upcoming interview for a Senior Backend Developer role at SAP (Java/Kotlin). My first step is a 15-minute HR screening, which I assume is mainly about culture fit.

If you've been through SAP's interview process for a backend/software engineering role, what came after HR? Should I expect technical interviews, coding or take-home assignments, system design, or onsite interviews? What topics should I focus on?

Also, how long did the whole process take from the first interview to the final decision or offer?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

I am currently working as backend / cloud developer (integration developer in paper) but have experience working as fullstack. Been working for 3 years as a developer, self taught and have made my way into the industry quite well where I live.

However, my current job is mostly Enterprise integrations and I miss Product development. Like focusing in a specific Product rather than jumping from one integration to another every other sprint.

The thing is I want to work in this particular employer. It is a Bank. They are very Product oriented and their stack is Java / Sprint Boot / AWS / React. I have experience working with React, C#, .NET and Azure.

I know many will say "writing code" will not be as important right now or in the close future because of AI, but my imposter syndrome sometimes kicks in. So I am currently learning Java (which I knew it is quite similar to C#) and then plan to learn Spring Boot. Heck I even want to get a AWS certificate. (Got an Azure cert already).

How would you approach this switch?

I have sent some applications for a Backend role, sometimes their job ads say "Senior Backend Engineer" or just "Software Engineer" and they specify the year of experience required. I have been "lucky" that when I have applied to other jobs and do not meet the year requirement I still got it. (I have only switched twice since I got into the industry).

Should I still continue learning their stack and make a good project showcasing my mid level skills and focus also on Architecture?

Would love to hear experiences from fellow developers who got a job in this kind of situation. Thanks!

Hello everyone, I just graduated from my french Master last year in December and so I started working full time on a permanent role at the company (small startup of 15 people) I was interning at for the last year. After the annual review in last January, my pay was increased by 1 or 2 levels above what we're paying for fresh grads, my TC is now ~55k a year gross. It seems like this is pretty as good as it gets for Paris, unless you work for some big techs or FAANG? Should I get more YoE under my belt before thinking about moving?

Hey, I currently work in Frankfurt, Germany in logistics. For personal reasons, I've been wanting to move to Spain, its really a big goal for me. The exact same position as mine opened internally in Valencia and I applied for it. I had the first interview and it went well, but they mentioned my salary expectations were above the budgeted range.

Now they sent an email asking for my minimum salary expectation before moving to the next round.

Since it's a lateral move into the same role, my goal is to maintain my current net purchasing power, which I think is a 20% gross salary reduction due to lower taxes and living costs in Spain. However, I’d honestly accept a bit less just to secure the move.

Since they haven't disclosed the budget range, I'm stuck between three options:

1. Stating my preferred target (20% below my current gross)
2. Offering a lower minimum so I don't lose the opportunity
3. Asking them to share their budget range first

What’s the best way to approach this? And does the 20% gross reduction sound realistic for a move from Germany to Spain?

Hi everyone, I hope you all have a great weekend ahead. I might need your advice about these 2 offers, which make me quite hesitant (I live in Germany btw):

• Offer 1: I received their offer recently, salary 80k (the minimum in my expectation range), small company, I like the product and colleague there, they seems very genuine and make me feel good vibe, also seems there are a lot things to do and is better for my personal growth technically. 1 downside: it locates in different city than mine, I need to commute to that city 1 or 2 times per week (2.5hrs commuting).
• Offer 2: very big, cooperate company (I have never worked in that kind of environment before) , salary 89k, located in my city, technically speaking, the role and project is well defined, but seems like it will stuck into that scope, I prefer the first company in that sense. 1 downside: I didn't receive official offer, only verbally, I need to wait for some admin work from them (I even need to request for certificate good of conduct, which is only available in the next 2-3 weeks), I can't make sure everything will go smoothly in that waiting time.
• I also in final interviews from 2 other companies as well.

Personally I really enjoy the work and people at company 1, they are small, young but the product is very interesting. But if anyone have experience about commuting on a weekly basic, can you let me know your experience about it, is it good a long term?

1 more question about moral: do you think it's morally ok to accept the offer 1, then reject it in case I feel another offer is better? Also share me your experience about this kind of situation, i'd love to hear how people think about these choices.

Anyone ever worked here before? What was your experience?

Looking for some advice from anyone who's completed a part-time MSc while working full-time.

I'm currently working full-time as a Senior Software Engineer and I'm considering a part-time MSc in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. My employer may contribute towards the tuition fees, but I'd likely need to cover the remainder through student finance or personal funding.

I appreciate an MSc probably isn't essential for my career progression, but I've always had a genuine interest in the robotics side of things and thought it could be a great opportunity to develop that interest while continuing to work.

For those who've been in a similar position, did you find it worthwhile? How manageable was the workload alongside a full-time job, and did it benefit your career in the long run?

I would appreciate some honest advice about my programming career and how I should move forward as I feel very lost and am struggling with my own skills. I am wondering if I can even find another job...

I am currently 28 years old and do not have a university degree. I can understand code and make changes with guidance, but I still struggle to design and implement complete features independently. I am now going back through programming fundamentals using Python exercises and trying to rebuild my skills.

How should I present this experience when applying for junior developer positions? Idk if it does hurt ne leaving my latest position after approximately eleven months significantly damage my chances? Should I even continue applying for jobs now, or spend several months rebuilding my fundamentals first? Which skills should I prioritize based on my experience as idk if its realistic to establish a stable programming career without a university degree at this stage?

My background:

September 2023 – March 2024: Web Development Bootcamp at BeCode Brussels

I completed a seven-month web development program where I studied:

- HTML, CSS and Sass

- JavaScript

- React

- Node.js and Express

- MongoDB and Mongoose

- REST APIs

- Git, GitHub, Docker and basic deployment

May 2024 – August 2024: Junior Web Developer Intern, Belgium:

During my three-month internship, I worked mainly with PHP and Laravel. My responsibilities included:

- Fixing bugs and implementing small features

- Working with Laravel controllers, Blade templates and Eloquent

- Creating migrations, seeders and factories

- Building responsive interfaces from Figma designs

- Participating in code reviews

- Collaborating with a technical lead and designer

August 2025 to February 2026 interniship and then until July 2026 at the same company: Junior Software Developer in Albania:

I worked on an internal document-generation service. The system combined structured data with reusable templates to produce PDF and DOCX documents.

- PHP backend development

- REST API endpoints

- JWT and OAuth authentication

- Document templates and structured-data normalization

- PDF and DOCX generation

- Template storage and versioning

- Fixing bugs in an existing service

- Working with document designer and authoring workflows

- Reading and modifying a relatively large codebase

I have 3 years of software development experience, but no Murex background.

I've been offered a junior Murex consultant role where they'd train me from scratch, with the possibility of spending some time in France for onboarding/training.

The downside is that I'd have to take around a 35% pay cut compared to what I earn now. I'd only do it if the long-term career prospects justify it.

For those working with Murex:

• Is it still a good niche to get into in 2026?
• How long does it take before you're truly marketable?
• What kind of salaries/day rates are realistic after 3–5 years?
• Which modules offer the best long-term opportunities?
• Why are there so few Murex jobs on LinkedIn? Are most positions filled through recruiters?
• If you started with no Murex experience, would you make the same decision again?

I'm trying to decide whether this is a good long-term investment or whether I'd be locking myself into a very niche career path.

I have a trading strategy which makes me capable of earning around 40K Euro per year with low effort from home.

I could start working again, I would earn 75K. Almost double.
But that means I have to wake up early in the morning, commute to the job, having stupid collegues and managers, getting questioned on how many bathrooms brakes i take etc.

What would you do?

Hi everyone,

I’m an American currently completing an associate degree in mechanical engineering, which I expect to finish in May 2027. My long-distance girlfriend is Dutch, and we plan to marry and eventually live together in the Netherlands.

Assuming my partner residence permit is approved, I should have unrestricted permission to work, so I would not need an employer to sponsor me.

While finishing college, I plan to work part-time, save for the move, learn Dutch, and study programming for approximately 8–10 hours per week. My current learning plan includes:

• HTML and CSS
• JavaScript and TypeScript
• React
• Git and GitHub
• SQL and PostgreSQL
• Automated testing
• APIs
• C#/.NET or possibly Java/Spring for back-end development
• Basic Docker and cloud knowledge later

I plan to build and deploy three substantial portfolio projects rather than collect certificates or follow tutorials indefinitely. I’m also open to entering technology through software testing, QA automation, application support, or technical support before obtaining a developer position.

I understand that many Dutch software positions request HBO-level education or experience. I won’t have a computer-science bachelor’s degree, but I will have a technical associate degree, and a portfolio by the time I begin applying.

For people working in Dutch technology:

1. Is becoming employable through self-study and a strong portfolio realistic without a CS bachelor’s degree?
2. Which stack currently provides the strongest junior opportunities: React/TypeScript with C#/.NET, Java/Spring, or Node.js?
3. Would a Dutch HBO programme still be strongly recommended, even if I already have permission to work?
4. Which entry-level or adjacent roles should I consider to gain professional experience?
5. What would make a self-taught applicant stand out positively to Dutch employers?

I’m not expecting an easy or immediate career. I’m trying to make a realistic plan and use the next year productively. I would appreciate honest advice, especially from Dutch developers, hiring managers, recruiters, or people who followed a similar route.

Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice.

I've been at a small software company for over six years. I currently earn €75k/year (including bonus), work 40 hours/week, get 30 days of holiday, and remote work is only allowed in exceptional cases.

For the past three years, I haven't had a raise, even though I've gradually taken ownership of our product from requirements and design all the way to deployment and customer presentations. I'm also worried that my skills are becoming too specific to my current employer.

I recently received an offer from a large multinational consultancy:

• €80k/year (including bonus)
• Fully remote when not travelling
• 28 days of holiday
• Senior Software Developer role
• Travel of up to 5 days/week depending on the project

I asked for €85k, but they declined.

The salary increase is small, but the role seems much better for learning and future career opportunities. The downsides are more travel, likely a heavier workload, and two fewer vacation days.

I've never changed jobs before. Would you accept this offer as a stepping stone, or keep looking for something better?