What Working At Stripe Has Been Like • Hacker News Board

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#31

Post by OliverGilan » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

_corym wrote: post #12

Kind of crazy how all these articles come out about what it's like working at Stripe and how to apply. Everyone I've talked to who has applied has not received a response from their application. Even in my most recent experience I wrote a cover letter, reached out to multiple Stripe recruiters. Most of them either ignored me, or said that they were not working on that role and said my status is still "pending". I ima…

I applied for a new grad position two months ago, did the coding challenge and passed all test cases with clean code and time to spare and haven't heard a peep from them since. It's a shame considering how I only hear good things about the company and the recruiting process but almost all the big companies I've applied to have at least had the decency to let me know they aren't moving forward

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#32

Post by patio11 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

ffggvv wrote: post #25

why would you work at a company that may never go public and even if it does, already has such an oversized valuation you’ll likely not make much from it? it seems predatory and abusive to employees to stay private this long

A quirk of Silicon Valley culture is that senior employees on the inside of it tend to be rather sophisticated about how they think about equity, and they also tend to be rather reticent about talking about that externally, because of factors such as legal and PR risk.

This is immensely frustrating to me, because thinking lucidly about equity is incredibly important for career planning for engineers who are startup-adjacent, work at AppAmaGooBookSoft, or who are in markets where those firms' offers set market terms. I think this sets us up for a continuance of the class system, where people who talked about this subject around the dinner table or have a frat brother who was in Google in 2004 know the score, and people who grew up in Chicago and didn't know what Google was in 2003 do not, even when they're evaluating career options which are heavily dependent on correctly valuing equity.

I did not always think lucidly about equity, and overly trusted the representations of folks on Internet watering holes who said that equity was likely to be nearly worthless. I would like to think I've learned a bit over the years.

I apologize for being indirect here; feel free to ask me about equity in some place where it will not be reasonably read as a comment on a firm I owe various duties to. (Offer broadly open to HNers.)

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#33

Post by dmazin » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

Every time I read about Stripe, it seems that the most interesting people work/have worked there (Julia Evans, Aditya Mukerjee, Mudge, Brandur, Greg Brockman). And it seems like a great culture.

But the CEO's "progress studies" thing repels me because it reeks of the Kochs' efforts to implant conservatism into education. I don't want to enable that. It sucks.

BTW, I am one of the people who had their YC app reviewed by patio11 and it was a great experience. It's amazing how much time he's able to dedicate to individual Stripe Atlas participants -- thanks!

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#34

Post by sushshshsh » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:18 PM UTC

OliverGilan wrote: post #31

_corym wrote: post #12

Kind of crazy how all these articles come out about what it's like working at Stripe and how to apply. Everyone I've talked to who has applied has not received a response from their application. Even in my most recent experience I wrote a cover letter, reached out to multiple Stripe recruiters. Most of them either ignored me, or said that they were not working on that role and said my status is still "pending". I ima…

I applied for a new grad position two months ago, did the coding challenge and passed all test cases with clean code and time to spare and haven't heard a peep from them since. It's a shame considering how I only hear good things about the company and the recruiting process but almost all the big companies I've applied to have at least had the decency to let me know they aren't moving forward

what an amazing industry we work in! denying top talent every day because people aren't motivated enough to check emails, make phone calls, click buttons to schedule things.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#35

Post by ignoramous » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

What a good blog post this is.

> A portion of my job is helping folks communicate that we're serious, reliable infrastructure for the largest participants in the global economy while also keenly appreciating that the user might be on a small team trying to sell bingo cards or politically-themed breakfast cereal.

AWS and Cloudflare are two other examples of XaaS companies that benefit from this mode of operation. They're both workable for a one-person team as much as they're for global enterprises.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#36

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

_corym wrote: post #12

Kind of crazy how all these articles come out about what it's like working at Stripe and how to apply. Everyone I've talked to who has applied has not received a response from their application. Even in my most recent experience I wrote a cover letter, reached out to multiple Stripe recruiters. Most of them either ignored me, or said that they were not working on that role and said my status is still "pending". I ima…

[deleted]

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#37

Post by TedShiller » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #17

TedShiller wrote: post #14

I don't doubt this is true. However, given that the author put his name on it, it's impossible that this blog post could be anything but glowingly positive (unless he wanted to complain on his way out).

I asked for, and got, total editorial control of my voice in my spaces when I joined. Though in any universe where my experience at Stripe wasn't positive, I would be unlikely to have stayed for four years or to have written the post, right? I tried to be honest about my frustrations, too, but there's a possibility my salaryman indirectness made them not leap off the page.

Sure, but you can't say too many bad things about the company. Of course you would never write "I don't like working here", as long as your real name is on the post.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#38

Post by patio11 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

dmazin wrote: post #33

Every time I read about Stripe, it seems that the most interesting people work/have worked there (Julia Evans, Aditya Mukerjee, Mudge, Brandur, Greg Brockman). And it seems like a great culture. But the CEO's "progress studies" thing repels me because it reeks of the Kochs' efforts to implant conservatism into education. I don't want to enable that. It sucks. BTW, I am one of the people who had their YC app reviewed…

You're welcome!

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#39

Post by ryanSrich » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

_corym wrote: post #12

Kind of crazy how all these articles come out about what it's like working at Stripe and how to apply. Everyone I've talked to who has applied has not received a response from their application. Even in my most recent experience I wrote a cover letter, reached out to multiple Stripe recruiters. Most of them either ignored me, or said that they were not working on that role and said my status is still "pending". I ima…

Oh man. I have a juicy Stripe story from a friend, but I'd rather not share all of the details in case anyone from Stripe is here listening.

The gist is that I had a friend apply, go through a few interviews, and then just get completely ghosted. After several emails and attempts to reach out, the hiring manager replied to his email with a two word reply when my friend asked about his application status. That reply was "no thanks".

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#40

Post by wbronitsky » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #39

_corym wrote: post #12

Kind of crazy how all these articles come out about what it's like working at Stripe and how to apply. Everyone I've talked to who has applied has not received a response from their application. Even in my most recent experience I wrote a cover letter, reached out to multiple Stripe recruiters. Most of them either ignored me, or said that they were not working on that role and said my status is still "pending". I ima…

Oh man. I have a juicy Stripe story from a friend, but I'd rather not share all of the details in case anyone from Stripe is here listening. The gist is that I had a friend apply, go through a few interviews, and then just get completely ghosted. After several emails and attempts to reach out, the hiring manager replied to his email with a two word reply when my friend asked about his application status. That reply w…

In my experience, stories like this are par for the course. While at Stripe, a few of my close friends and former co-workers were treated so poorly during the application process that I stopped referring anyone over a year before I left.