<story><title>What Working at Stripe Has Been Like</title><url>https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/3/18/two-years-at-stripe/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cyberferret</author><text>If Stripe&amp;#x27;s HR department is reading this thread, I think they can pinpoint one crucial interview question that will determine culture fit in their organisation for future hiring - and that is &amp;quot;do you like talking about your accomplishments with the rest of your team?&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Seems to be a very polarising thing to be asked to do, judging by the replies on this particular comment.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Curious about the downvotes? This is a real thing.  I am sure they don&amp;#x27;t want to hire people that would hate to write shipped emails and publish them to the list if they actively hated writing them.  It is simply not good culture fit, and I am sure they would want to identify that early on in the recruitment process.</text></item><item><author>spudlyo</author><text>I left Stripe a little over 6 months ago to join an exciting startup with a number of my friends. What I miss most about working there is the culture of shipping. There are a number of &amp;#x27;shipped&amp;#x27; email lists at Stripe where people can tout their accomplishments large and small. These lists are widely read and commented on, and folks put in a fair amount of effort making their &amp;quot;shipped&amp;quot; emails informative and entertaining.&lt;p&gt;That feeling you get when you finish a challenging project, write a great shipped email, and get a bunch of feedback from folks throughout the company is pretty amazing. Once I was invited to convert one of my shipped emails into a presentation for a company all-hands meeting. I had a less than a week to get it done, which was pretty hectic, but in the end it turned out great and it was perhaps my favorite memory of my time at Stripe.&lt;p&gt;I enjoy my current job, and those little dopamine hits I get from checking things off my list as well as the bigger ones from finishing projects, but now only my boss and some teammates notice when I finish something. One thing I learned about myself, is that I really do care about what other people think about my work.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rattray</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s certainly a reasonable concern given the information above. For what it&amp;#x27;s worth, though, I work at Stripe and I&amp;#x27;ve never felt pressured to write a shipped email; I don&amp;#x27;t think others are either.&lt;p&gt;In fact, I think the only shipped emails I&amp;#x27;ve written have been on behalf of colleagues since I was so excited about something they&amp;#x27;d built&amp;#x2F;fixed (with their permission). Many (most?) Stripes aren&amp;#x27;t the type to brag about their work. But it is nice to share, and to let others know that X product is better now.</text></comment>
<story><title>What Working at Stripe Has Been Like</title><url>https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/3/18/two-years-at-stripe/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cyberferret</author><text>If Stripe&amp;#x27;s HR department is reading this thread, I think they can pinpoint one crucial interview question that will determine culture fit in their organisation for future hiring - and that is &amp;quot;do you like talking about your accomplishments with the rest of your team?&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Seems to be a very polarising thing to be asked to do, judging by the replies on this particular comment.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Curious about the downvotes? This is a real thing.  I am sure they don&amp;#x27;t want to hire people that would hate to write shipped emails and publish them to the list if they actively hated writing them.  It is simply not good culture fit, and I am sure they would want to identify that early on in the recruitment process.</text></item><item><author>spudlyo</author><text>I left Stripe a little over 6 months ago to join an exciting startup with a number of my friends. What I miss most about working there is the culture of shipping. There are a number of &amp;#x27;shipped&amp;#x27; email lists at Stripe where people can tout their accomplishments large and small. These lists are widely read and commented on, and folks put in a fair amount of effort making their &amp;quot;shipped&amp;quot; emails informative and entertaining.&lt;p&gt;That feeling you get when you finish a challenging project, write a great shipped email, and get a bunch of feedback from folks throughout the company is pretty amazing. Once I was invited to convert one of my shipped emails into a presentation for a company all-hands meeting. I had a less than a week to get it done, which was pretty hectic, but in the end it turned out great and it was perhaps my favorite memory of my time at Stripe.&lt;p&gt;I enjoy my current job, and those little dopamine hits I get from checking things off my list as well as the bigger ones from finishing projects, but now only my boss and some teammates notice when I finish something. One thing I learned about myself, is that I really do care about what other people think about my work.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andrewingram</author><text>Possibly that such a recruitment filter would exclude a lot of people with depression or anxiety-related mental illness.&lt;p&gt;To clarify, I &lt;i&gt;hate&lt;/i&gt; talking about my accomplishments, it makes me feel deeply anxious and uncomfortable, and will say as much if asked. But I’ll also do it if that’s what’s required of me.</text></comment>