I took some time before I posted this review as I wanted to reflect on the interviews, and if I will interview for Stripe again (I will not in near future). Interview formant was mostly behavioral and situation based. Lot of emphasis on execution, setting strategy, self-awareness and on technical depth. The end to end process took about 6 weeks with 7 rounds of interviews. The role was an engineering manager role. Throughout the interview process, the recruiting and scheduling support from Stripe was great, and worked like a well-oiled machine. The interviewers seemed like great technologists and passionate about Stripe and its vision. Overall, it seemed like a place which has a good team of technologists, lots of interesting problems to solve, but struggling with prioritization and scaling problems. Nothing new for a company at this stage. Although I like that Stripe has attempted to convert its culture fit rounds to a "formula" with the format they have, over all I found the process very dry and vague. In the 7 rounds, I only spoke to the hiring manager for 45 min, out of which 40 min was spent on more formulaic situation based questions. I had 5 min to ask about the role, the vision, his leadership style. Throughout the process I repeatedly requested the recruiters that I will like to get more clarity on role - so that I can cater my answers to the interviews, and second, to know why should I spend many many hours preparing for interviews which involve - written sample submissions, technical presentations etc. Despite my feedback, no one took time to get me linked to the hiring manager. This baffles me. When I hire for leadership roles, I want to ensure if the candidate feels comfortable with all the responsibilities of the role, what they will be accountable for, and that I and he/she has some level of trust established. You dont tend to hire/fire these roles often so this level of time spent is key. In the 45 min with hiring manager, he probably made eye contact with me twice, and honestly to this day I do not know what the role entailed, what problems he needs solved, size of organization or anything about his leadership style. All other interviewers were randomly picked from stripe, who had no idea about the role, and just concentrated on getting "data" during interview. I felt like a research subject and honestly towards the end of the process , i lost interest in the interview process. The written sample exercise is great, but again, what is the outcome that Stripe is trying to obtain? Every leader is able to write and convey the message to their audience and in the right context. I honestly had no idea who that audience and context was. The recruiting team tried to help, but they did not know about the role either and only gave very vague definitions. The technical presentation was very vague too. I was paired with a manager and an engineer. Without context, I went in with big picture context and then drove into details. I found the panel to be really lacking in curiosity and interest. Perhaps it was my communication style which deterred them to ask any relevant questions or perhaps they do not solve engineering problems at the scale. Thing is I have no idea, as the process was dry and had no context for me. After the interview, and not receiving the offer I contemplated if I should apply again to a different role. There are other very interesting roles in Stripe. I ultimately decided not to, because honestly, I cannot answer - "what's in it for me". I will revisit Stripe in few years and I hope they take this feedback to make the interview process about attracting talent from diverse domains and perspectives, not from a point of view of trying to fit leaders to a formula. In long run, they will create a homogenous culture, which will deteriorate innovation and growth.
