What Working At Stripe Has Been Like • Hacker News Board

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#61

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

slumpt_ wrote: post #56

wbronitsky wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that would be possible. If you say you like working someplace, we know that you work there. You couldn't possibly be hiding who is paying you. I don't think that is a fair accusation. I think it would be much better said that we should take with a grain of salt anyone's assessment of their current job.

Fair. Wrong word choice. The point just being that there could be a lot of company... encouragement... to be vocal about what you think of working at the org. And of course, to the point you raise, we must always take that with a grain of salt. Nobody is going to come to the table with complete honesty about the problems at a company with their name right next to it. Within reason, at least.

[deleted]

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#62

Post by sigstoat » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

pc wrote: post #21

_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'm sorry to hear this and apologize. We're definitely still a comparatively small team wishing we had more efficient ways to handle our inbound funnel. (We do have some ideas here.) But this is good feedback and we should absolutely have provided a better experience.

what sort of ideas are required besides sending an email to your IT folks and telling them to set up a JIRA project for tracking job applications? you could, in an afternoon, ensure that no applications are ever mysteriously forgotten about.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#63

Post by varjag » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #43

sushshshsh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Stripe likely has pick of the cream for open positions. It has been public knowledge for a while that they're a rocket ship, and that attracts top talent by definition (in addition to sharks and wolves [0] I'd presume). [0] https://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/06/great-story-from-s...

Overwhelmed or not, ghosting after coding challenge/technical interview is unacceptable.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#64

Post by polote » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:50 PM UTC

sigstoat wrote: post #62

pc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear this and apologize. We're definitely still a comparatively small team wishing we had more efficient ways to handle our inbound funnel. (We do have some ideas here.) But this is good feedback and we should absolutely have provided a better experience.

what sort of ideas are required besides sending an email to your IT folks and telling them to set up a JIRA project for tracking job applications? you could, in an afternoon, ensure that no applications are ever mysteriously forgotten about.

All that is already included in any ATS (applicant tracking system) on the market

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#65

Post by ss3000 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

ditonal wrote: post #57

pc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear this and apologize. We're definitely still a comparatively small team wishing we had more efficient ways to handle our inbound funnel. (We do have some ideas here.) But this is good feedback and we should absolutely have provided a better experience.

Stripe was founded over ten years ago, is worth tens of billions of dollars, thousands of employees, and has tons of software expertise. And the excuse for bad candidate experience is a lack of resources.

Exactly, it's clearly not a lack of resources, but explicitly not prioritizating candidate experience for candidates you're not actively pursuing. Which, by the way I think is a totally valid decision to make, but let's not kid around and make it sound like your hands were tied.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#66

Post by divbzero » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:54 PM UTC

I really like long form idea packed essays like this.

One of the many ideas that jumped out at me:

> A huge portion of the value creation of Silicon Valley is through directly intervening on the ambition of impressionable people.

This seems especially applicable for software-only or software-heavy businesses that scale very efficiently. Increasing ambition by a little can result in large increase in impact on the other end.

Another idea that caught my attention:

> Silicon Valley was a place. It has become a metonymy for a community of practice. You can find outposts of Silicon Valley in Tokyo cafes, in WeWorks in Bangalore, and on the coast of Cape Town.

If we can inspire ambition all around the world that bodes well for our future.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#67

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

ditonal wrote: post #57

pc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear this and apologize. We're definitely still a comparatively small team wishing we had more efficient ways to handle our inbound funnel. (We do have some ideas here.) But this is good feedback and we should absolutely have provided a better experience.

Stripe was founded over ten years ago, is worth tens of billions of dollars, thousands of employees, and has tons of software expertise. And the excuse for bad candidate experience is a lack of resources.

[deleted]

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#68

Post by ppllpp » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

The article really does make you want to apply. However, all remote jobs are Americas-only. Remote was supposed to be Stripe's next engineering hub even before the pandemic, so I'm curious if that will include Europe any time soon.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#69

Post by nsenifty » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:57 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…

I went through the whole loop, "cleared" the interviews (as per the recruiter) and was told to stand by for the offer. A week later, instead of the offer, they just said they ran out of headcount. Never heard back from them again (even though they said they'll reach out when they get headcount back).

This was for a pretty senior position.

Re: What Working At Stripe Has Been Like

#70

Post by heipei » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:57 PM UTC

benawad wrote: post #47

Does anyone know if Patrick has talked somewhere about why he decided to take a job at Stripe instead of continuing his consulting business or starting a new venture? Patrick didn't strike me as someone interested in working at a "regular" job.

Yeah, not knowing about him at all when I watched a talk by him and then realised that he is somewhat of an icon for indie/solo founders, I was very surprised to find out he had starting working as an employee in the meantime. I know he's doing well, but since I had just started out solo myself it felt a little like he had thrown in the towel ;)