Engineering the Future of Finance at Wealthsimple
From shipping fast to solving complex problems, our engineers share what it’s like to build at Wealthsimple
At Wealthsimple, we believe engineers are problem solvers, not task takers. Our engineering team is deeply connected to our mission to help everyone achieve financial freedom. We take ownership of what we build, adopting our values into the work we do:
- The client, the client, the client: Every decision starts here. We build for real people, including ourselves. We believe the best products come from obsessing over the user experience, even when it makes our work more complex.
- Ship it: We move fast, learn by doing, and avoid red tape wherever we can. Speed matters, not because we’re rushing, but because iteration is how we get better.
- We are maker-owners: Everyone here acts like an owner. If something’s broken, unclear or blocked, we jump in and fix it together.
- Naive ambition: We solve hard problems. We don’t ask, “can we do this?”, we ask, “how can we do this?”
- Be human: This applies to our products and our people. Finance can be complex, but leading with empathy and clarity is how we make it accessible.
- Keep it simple: Simplicity is what makes our products and the client experience better.
Engineers have speed, autonomy, and vertical ownership. Our “maker-owner” mindset is what enables us to make smart decisions, whether that’s about architecture, user impact, or trade-offs in scope and scale.
Our Product Pillars
We’ve spent the last decade building a better financial system. One that’s simple, accessible, and built around real people. Along the way, we’ve developed a set of pillars that help us stay focused on what matters most: making products that people genuinely love. We won't list them all here, but here are a few that shape the way our team thinks:
Great Value - every product should offer real value - low fees, smart design, and features that make it easier to do the right thing with your money. We want clients to feel like they’re winning from the moment they sign up.
Fast, Frictionless and Delightful - speed and simplicity matter. Whether someone’s opening an account, making a trade, or checking their balance, every interaction should feel seamless and and thoughtful - never clunky or confusing.
Reliable and Trustworthy - we’re a financial company. That means being reliable, stable and secure isn’t just table stakes - it’s everything. Clients need to know we’ve got their backs, and that trust is something we earn with every decision, every product, every day.
How We Work
Like any great team, we follow a playbook. Product identifies client needs or market opportunities, and we decide what changes to make and where. Every 8 weeks, we plan what to work on: engineers are involved early, often pitching ideas and doing discovery. We aim to cover a broad range of use cases and test extensively. Early feedback comes from employees using new features internally (dogfooding), helping us catch gaps, fix bugs, and review code before anything reaches clients.
What We've Built
Our engineering team has shipped some incredible products over the years. We asked a few folks to highlight the ones they’re most proud of:
Wealthsimple Presents: The End of Banking?
“A recent project I’m really proud of is Wealthsimple Presents. It was a big moment where we got to show our banking product to tens of thousands of people. What made it special was everything that led up to it.
Around the start of the year, we knew banking would be the focus, and we got to work on key features like wires, bank drafts, cheque deposits, personal eTransfers, a better home experience, and credit card support. Instead of backing off, we leaned into our naive ambition and asked, ‘What needs to be true for us to ship all of this in time?’ We merged teams, cleared their plates, and gave them one mission: build.
In just four months, every feature was available in the app for the event. It was Wealthsimple at its best: focused, ambitious, and unafraid to take on big, bold work.”
Tristan Himmelman, Director of Engineering
Joint Trading Accounts
“One of my fondest memories was about a year and a half ago when we were building joint trading accounts. It was a technically complex problem: we had to figure out how to support account owners with different permissions across multiple services, all while meeting strict performance requirements.
Instead of patching legacy code, we formed a tiger team with engineers from trading, accounts, and authorization. We flew everyone in and collaborated in person for the first time post-pandemic. After a few intense days of brainstorming and months of execution, we built a scalable solution and deprecated the old trade service. It was a real architectural milestone, and a chance to work shoulder to shoulder with some of the sharpest minds across the company.”
Anandh Sridharan, Senior Manager, Software Development
International Transfers
"One of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had here was leading the launch of International Transfers, our feature for sending money abroad. It was especially rewarding knowing we were helping many of our Canadian immigrant clients send money home more affordably.
This was a deep partnership with Wise, a company aligned with our mission. As someone who uses their product myself, I was fired up to help shape how it would work. The project spanned design, product, operations, AML, customer experience, and I felt empowered to take ownership across the board.
I was nervous at first, having never led something at this scale, but with the support of my team, I pushed through and grew a ton. It is exactly the kind of challenge that makes working here special.”
Evelyn Cheung, Senior Software Developer
If you’re someone who wants to build meaningful products, and work on something millions of Canadians use every day, where you are counting down the days to get into our employee betas, this is the place to do it!
We keep things simple, move fast, and care about the details.
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Written by Hannah Yeates, Staff Software Engineer
Interested in working at Wealthsimple? Check out the open roles on our team today.