5V tolerant I O? - mhightower83/Arduino-ESP8266-misc GitHub Wiki

Good discussion here:

When considering ringing for the input case, I prefer to play it safe and incorporate the level conversion in the resistor selection. They are needed anyway to reduce ringing.

Research References:

Find a FET for those level translator circuits. Also related, Espressif's Hardware Design Guideline, Figure 1-10b. ESP8266EX UART SWAP provides an example circuit to deal with issues that can occur with MCUs connected to GPIO15.