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What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

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Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#101

Post by cyberferret »

spudlyo wrote: post #32

I left Stripe a little over 6 months ago to join an exciting startup with a number of my friends. What I miss most about working there is the culture of shipping. There are a number of 'shipped' email lists at Stripe where people can tout their accomplishments large and small. These lists are widely read and commented on, and folks put in a fair amount of effort making their "shipped" emails informative and entertain…

If Stripe's HR department is reading this thread, I think they can pinpoint one crucial interview question that will determine culture fit in their organisation for future hiring - and that is "do you like talking about your accomplishments with the rest of your team?".

Seems to be a very polarising thing to be asked to do, judging by the replies on this particular comment.

EDIT: Curious about the downvotes? This is a real thing. I am sure they don't want to hire people that would hate to write shipped emails and publish them to the list if they actively hated writing them. It is simply not good culture fit, and I am sure they would want to identify that early on in the recruitment process.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#102

Post by edwinwee »

otherdave wrote: post #57
CharlesW wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These lists are widely read and commented on, and folks put in a fair amount of effort making their "shipped" emails informative and entertaining. Neat! I understand that you can't share them, but do you happen to know of any public examples?

I'd love to see some (even contrived) examples of these. Sounds like it could fit into the culture at my current job.

A lot of our blog posts start as [shipped] e-mails, like this one: https://stripe.com/blog/online-migrations

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#103

Post by Jach »

foldr wrote: post #65
spudlyo wrote: post #32

I left Stripe a little over 6 months ago to join an exciting startup with a number of my friends. What I miss most about working there is the culture of shipping. There are a number of 'shipped' email lists at Stripe where people can tout their accomplishments large and small. These lists are widely read and commented on, and folks put in a fair amount of effort making their "shipped" emails informative and entertain…

Is this optional? I would personally have no interest in writing such emails - it's just more work.

Same, but it sounds like it's required to the extent that visibility is required for promotion (no idea at Stripe, but at other companies visibility to upper management is more important than anything when it comes to promotions). To me it sounds like an improvement over the widespread practice of agile demo days / sprint reviews, where individuals on teams demo what has been "shipped" (or made dev-done at least) that sprint.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#105

Post by kevan »

rarecoil wrote: post #58
chapium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everything is your job, how can you be measured by what is your job fairly?

I don't think that's the point of the statement. Facebook culture makes a similar statement: "Nothing at Facebook is someone else's problem." I don't take it to mean that you are supposed to be the Atlas of the organization, but rather that when you see problems and issues that might arise, you don't ignore them because it's "not my job" or "not my problem" - you embrace it, escalate or forward it to the correct peop…

Very similar sentiment at Amazon.

>Leaders are owners...They never say “that’s not my job".

You own your entire problem space, not just your solution. If something unexpected comes up, you're still ultimately responsible for dealing with it with the goal of solving your actual problem

In a large company it's tempting for people or teams to put up walls around what they think their job description should be. Invariably there are gaps no one wants to own and it turns toxic pretty quickly.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#106

Post by martin_ »

benatkin wrote: post #63

I like the remote coffee at the end. I'm remote and I want it to feel more like I'm having coffee when I'm talking to people I work with. Any suggestions on how to make remote conversations more like getting a cup of coffee?

At Twilio we use Donut. The TLDR is with our configuration every third Monday members of a slack channel (#soc-donut in our case) get randomly paired via DM. I've met people from offices around the world which I wouldn't have done otherwise, which has definitely been of personal and professional benefit to me

[0] https://www.donut.com/

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#107

Post by pchristensen »

afarrell wrote: post #100
jklinger410 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't take it to mean that you are supposed to be the Atlas of the organization, but rather that when you see problems and issues that might arise, you don't ignore them because it's "not my job" or "not my problem" - you embrace it, escalate or forward it to the correct people, and then go back to what else you have to do. Trying to really educate around this at my workplace. I call it "throwing your hands up." I…

> on my shit list What would you tell a junior engineer who feels so overwhelmed with the tasks he is supposed to be focused on that he decides not to switch task to solving this other thing that may-or-may-not be a real problem? Also, are the phrases “Extreme Ownership” and “Question Behind the Question” from a US Navy SEAL book by Willink and Babin? Would you generally recommend that book?

I can highly recommend the book "Extreme Ownership" and Jocko's podcast. I haven't read his subsequent books but I assume they're also great.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#108

Post by OliverJones »

As a Stripe customer processing about USD600K a year through them, I have to say they're an excellent outfit.

Their documentation is very clear. Their email and irc support is smart and responsive, with nary a "I can help you with that today" script recited by an agent to waste my time.

They set and meet expectations about the financial stuff, like how long it takes for transactions to hit the bank, and what happens with disputes and chargebacks and other parts of the world of serving real paying people.

It's not hard to guess that the things in this article are all true.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#109

Post by js2 »

ikeboy wrote: post #98
penagwin wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with these specific numbers. Anecdotally I've had my own cards denied because I've reported my card missing and had to get new numbers. This is fairly common from what I've seen, many people I know have had issues because of this (late fees, etc.). Just another case I thought I'd add, as we sufficient funds and it wasn't fraud.

If you report your card missing then it's no longer a valid number.

Except for recurring payments, at least with AmEx.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#110

Post by travisjungroth »

lstamour wrote: post #30
travisjungroth wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon doesn't have a river in their logo.

Well actually... https://www.freelogodesign.org/blog/2018/09/10/the-amazon-lo...

Ok, I love that logo. It's straight '90s Outdoor Education.
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