It takes both luck and armor to survive - Technical Solutions Engineer Stripe Employee Review

1.0
Nov 3, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* a top unicorn in tech * awesome product and API * fast product iteration and ship rate * talented workforce * challenging * great perks

Cons

The operating principles are honorable, yet they are not followed. Your performance will be evaluated subjectively against moving goals that are either impossible to reach or have never been established. If your manager doesn't like you, they'll make your life miserable and fire you after demoralizing and confusing you to the point of anxiety. This happens frequently. Although Stripe refers to this as "performance management," it is abusive. The worst middle management I've encountered in my 15 years as a professional. Instead of empowering and growing, 1:1s were utilized to criticize and denigrate. No guidance, no coaching. Fear and bear traps. Get ready to tip-toe. If you want to keep your sanity, confidence, and happiness, stay away from this company.

Explore other reviews about Stripe

5.0
Jul 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

great work, great people, great culture:)

Cons

not all intern projects were all that interesting

4.0
Jun 4, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The work is very high impact and there are lots of opportunities to learn if you're not already familiar with the fintech space. Most of the big projects I've been on so far have been fun to work on. There are also a lot of talented, kind, and helpful engineers at Stripe who are really nice to learn from. I really enjoy my manager and the folks on my team. The money + bonuses are ~ok~. Pretty standard for a pre-IPO unicorn, but the goal is that there will be a big pay off later (fingers crossed).

Cons

- The work life balance is *bad*. For how many products Stripe has, we are a very lean company. Too lean. There's just a lot of work, and very very tight deadlines, very fast paced, and not enough engineers and product managers to do all of it. If you want WLB as an engineer, join an infrastructure team, not a product team. - There is little to no investment in making the engineering org more diverse. This was surprising to me because of a lot of public facing company statements, but don't be fooled like I was. People (at least in the eng org) do not care about diversity. - HR sucks. And of course they would, I guess. But I had a really negative experience with HR where I walked away feeling completely devalued and gaslit. - Dev environments kinda suck and make the work a lot slower than it should be.

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