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What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

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Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#151

Post by icelancer »

OliverJones wrote: post #108

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…

I like a lot of things about Stripe but this is by far the best part:

> Their documentation is very clear.

In a world where no one gives a shit about cleanly documenting processes - especially ones that are versioned or change - I really appreciate Stripe's dedication to this.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#152

Post by quantum_magpie »

discordance wrote: post #121
alexcnwy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in Tokyo right now for work (my startup NumberBoost won an innovation competition with NTT Japan) and it’s so wild how simultaneously forward and backward things are here. On the one hand, there are so many things they do here that make me feel like they’re in the future. On the other hand, every fifth person has a flip phone, the WiFi sucks, you can’t buy a travel SIM card at the mall, and there are CD/DVD store…

Travel sim cards are available everywhere. Your local BIC, Yodabashi or electronics retailer sells them [1]. 1: https://tokyocheapo.com/business/internet/prepaid-cheap-japa...

Those are data-only. You can't get a real SIM card without contract.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#153

Post by mpeg »

xrd wrote: post #15

The most fascinating part of this article is the idea that Stripe is spending time thinking about unlocking potential in Internet businesses in Japan. A tough nut to crack. The revolution is happening in all these countries, but if Stripe can move the needle in Brazil and Japan and other places where entrepreneurship currently requires more grease/graft, that'll really be interesting.

I interviewed for a sales engineering position for Stripe APAC around December and they turned me down for only having existing commercial relationships in Japan (they were only interested in candidates with a strong commercial network in Singapore) and a little less management experience than they ideally wanted.

They offered me a role in Dublin instead, which I wasn't very interested on, and then ghosted me when I pushed to find out compensation before continuing (so I'm assuming they pay under market)

Not surprisingly, the position is still open 3+ months later

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#154

Post by hnra »

hawkice wrote: post #132
myhf wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be an effective way to commit illegal discrimination.

I mean, discussing your work with your coworkers is a pretty reasonable workplace responsibility. What's illegal about asking if someone was comfortable doing it?

Not discussing, talking about. Not work, accomplishments. Not comfortable, liking it.

I guess those would be the differences.

"Do you like talking about your accomplishments with the rest of your team?"

"Are you comfortable discussing your work with the rest of your team?"

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#155

Post by fyfy18 »

After reading all of that and thinking "Stripe sounds like a really cool place to work", I'm a bit disappointed that they don't have an office in my country and "remote" means "remote in North America".

Oh well, I'll keep working with them to build cool stuff for my clients :-)

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#156

Post by LIV2 »

icelancer wrote: post #149
countryqt30 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% agree with this. Stripe is fun for startups with <100'000 / year revenue, but then it gets ugly. The reporting can't be configured at all and is highly cumbersome, especially if you need something slightly different than they offer for comparability (e.g. last 7 days, last 28 vs last 30 days), and Stripe is not transparent about their fees at all in the back-end.

I'll add my 2c and say I disagree entirely. We ship mid-seven figures through Stripe yearly and I enjoy the back-end still to this day - have been using it right after it was /dev/payments and still kicking all these years on my main small business and small projects alike. I don't see the need for "reporting" from the Stripe website as I think most businesses should be doing it on their own in their own tooling, but…

And what is the business case and cost for "we should develop software to fill in the missing features of payment provider x instead of simply going with y"?

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#157

Post by 80386 »

andrewingram wrote: post #123
cyberferret wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Possibly that such a recruitment filter would exclude a lot of people with depression or anxiety-related mental illness. To clarify, I hate talking about my accomplishments, it makes me feel deeply anxious and uncomfortable, and will say as much if asked. But I’ll also do it if that’s what’s required of me.

I've been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I don't have a tech job yet (I have a hard time applying to jobs, for... obvious reasons), but I keep a public log of accomplishments for my weekend projects, announce them when other people might be interested in new features, and so on.

Different people are different. It'll exclude a lot of people, but not all of them, and it certainly wouldn't be clear-cut discrimination.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#158

Post by tatami »

alexcnwy wrote: post #113
alexcnwy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in Tokyo right now for work (my startup NumberBoost won an innovation competition with NTT Japan) and it’s so wild how simultaneously forward and backward things are here. On the one hand, there are so many things they do here that make me feel like they’re in the future. On the other hand, every fifth person has a flip phone, the WiFi sucks, you can’t buy a travel SIM card at the mall, and there are CD/DVD store…

For example good luck getting mayonnaise with your fries at any of the fast food chains here. They have mayonnaise and they put it on burgers but they “CANNOT” give (or sell) it to you in a separate container for your fries.

This surprises me, since there are a lot of Japanese obsessed with mayonnaise, putting it on everything including white rice.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#159

Post by rajasimon »

pololee wrote: post #148

I was in a small company working on payments team as fullstack engineer. Given the big volume, stripe would be too expensive for us. So we built our own credit card processing service. We integrated with FirstData directly. While I was working on payments, I kept following news about stripe. I love their design and appreciate the deep care they put in their product, even the documentation. I like Patrick and John's i…

Same here. Done coding challenge and got the interview call but finally, they turned me down.

Re: What Working at Stripe Has Been Like

#160

Post by adaptiveValleys »

arandr0x wrote: post #54
JoblessWonder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are spot on. I think a specific amount of hubris to go along with the intellectual curiosity and tenacity is important. It is the amount of confidence to say, "Hey, I can take this on. I'm not familiar with it directly but I understand enough of the context to help." You do have to be careful to not have too much confidence because then you will alienate your peers/management and be viewed as a know-it-al…

This is exactly true. Any tips how to identify companies that welcome this during interviews? (Or companies that don't.) I wouldn't have considered myself as having "hubris" but I have a kind of semi-wild enthusiasm for being able to do things that people have reacted badly to before for exactly the reason you said. I'm not sure how to signal to companies "my deal is I want to do things; I will more or less literally…

I'm very much like you, and I think startups/small companies with a flat management structure (i.e. level obfuscation as another commenter phrased it) or where most managers have engineering backgrounds.

In my experience at large companies, on teams that were technical and heavily collaborated with engineering, but were not overseen by engineering managers. Middle management was entirely focused on optimizing for metrics that were either assigned to them, or would result in career progress; instead of what was best for the company. Regardless of whether the companies claimed to have a "nothing is someone else's problem" culture. As a result, any embodiment of that principle, was either punished or perceived as creating problems by non-technical managers. Even if direct praise was often received from engineers and their managers for those actions. In that workplace dynamic, it inherently carries a lot of risk and easily puts a target on your back.

Besides posts like this that give first-hand accounts from employees. It's quite hard to identify what would be an honest signal of true dedication to that principle. Especially in interviews where you're a very qualified candidate, it's difficult to tell if interviewer is trying to selling you the idea of working there.

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