Our users entrust us with their money, their businesses, and their livelihoods. Millions of businesses around the world (individuals, startups, and large enterprises) are open for business only if we are. When we mess up, miss a deadline, or slow down, it matters. We take that responsibility seriously.
Great Stripes bring intensity and discipline to their work. We don’t care about unnecessary face time and Stripes have a great deal of flexibility around when and where they work because they know best what is needed to get their jobs done. Many Stripes prosper here while ensuring that they have dinner with their families or friends almost every evening.
But working here will mean some late nights, some weekends, and (especially if you end up in a position of significant responsibility) paying attention to email even during off-hours. Depending on your role, you may end up in meetings with colleagues dialing in from San Francisco, Tokyo, and Paris. There is no way to schedule that meeting such that everyone attends it during traditional work hours. Our business is intertwined with the global economy, so while Stripes take holidays, Stripe does not.
You will also be surrounded by exceptionally motivated, driven people. They span a diverse range of life circumstances, values, and working styles. This has the advantage of ensuring that you’ll almost never be annoyed about that slacker in the next cubicle (and not just because we don’t have cubicles). But it can also be stressful: if you compare yourself to others, you will almost always see someone working harder, staying longer, or being more successful.
We’re not a very competitive culture in the sense that someone else does not need to lose for you to win. Your colleagues won’t work to undermine you as they might in a winner-takes-all environment. However, we are a very competitive culture in the sense that, if you set a high bar, you’ll probably inspire someone working with you to try to push it higher. Success at Stripe means seeking out the ski slopes that are just a bit too steep.
We’re moving quickly, changing regularly, and aren’t very prescriptive in most things. We expect a lot of autonomy from Stripes both in the work they do and in their own development. We believe in performance management and feedback, but we’re not rigid in terms of a career paths and box checking. That said, don’t confuse lack of top down direction with lack of interest from the top: high performers are recognized, enabled, and rewarded. There are “conventional” forms of recognition at Stripe, like equity refreshes and bonuses. However, we get most excited about giving high performing Stripes the room to work on the most interesting and high-impact problems.
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF
Do you want to work hard at a place that could never be described as a cushy job?
Are you comfortable with owning your own career outcomes, rather than having a clear progression of goals and milestones described to you by a single decisionmaker?