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I wrote about my experiences working at Stripe for the last 4 years: https://kalzumeus.com/2020/10/09/four-years-at-stripe/
It& #39;s">https://kalzumeus.com/2020/10/0... partly self-reflection, partly my view on why this is an extremely special company, and partly my continuing search for an answer to the question "So what is your *actual job*?"
It& #39;s">https://kalzumeus.com/2020/10/0... partly self-reflection, partly my view on why this is an extremely special company, and partly my continuing search for an answer to the question "So what is your *actual job*?"
I think the biggest thing I& #39;ve learned about myself from the experience is through reflecting, often with @taylorfrancis (then my manager, and a person more people should know) , on what I really want to get out of my career.
Since 2006 I had been mostly punting on that question. I was running companies! Success for the company is success for the career definitionally, right?
But anyone who knew me could tell you I got a lot more fulfillment out of writing, business mechanics, and helping entrepreneurs than I did out of the thrilling adventures that were PDF layout optimization and selling to dentist offices.
The thing I realized is that the through line of all the career things that gave me joy was helping software people be more successful. So I& #39;ve made that more of an explicit focus, and it both helps pick the right opportunities and makes my work more meaningful to me.
I& #39;m almost positive I& #39;ll run another company again someday, but for the moment Stripe seems to be an incredibly leveraged opportunity to help software people.
Like I told them at the interview: "You don& #39;t have to convince me; I fed my family out of a Stripe account for 6 years."
Like I told them at the interview: "You don& #39;t have to convince me; I fed my family out of a Stripe account for 6 years."
Pick customers you like dealing with because their problems will be your problems every day for forever. We have the best customers one could ask for: passionate, driven, smart people who are trying to claw something out of the ether. Working in the service of them is a delight.
It also has some formidable challenges. Stripe will someday be, if we execute correctly, one of the world& #39;s most important software businesses.
This doesn& #39;t mean that we have a magic wand around challenges inherent in getting thousands of people to work together.
This doesn& #39;t mean that we have a magic wand around challenges inherent in getting thousands of people to work together.
We& #39;re in those awkward teenage years between "We& #39;re a startup, so if we screw up, the blast radius will be pretty minimal" and "We& #39;re an extremely sophisticated enterprise, so clearly somebody has long-since solved X challenge + there& #39;s a process on it which repeatably succeeds."
This means that getting work done often requires subjectively more effort than it should, and sometimes things get a little nailbiting.
And the biggest risk isn& #39;t even screwing up. The biggest risk, by far, is getting complacent.
And the biggest risk isn& #39;t even screwing up. The biggest risk, by far, is getting complacent.
I am extremely fortunate to work with the folks I get to work with, and also the several team members who have gone on to new adventures after overlapping.
Stripes tend to be extremely smart, empathetic (almost to a fault), and purposeful about how they go about executing.
Stripes tend to be extremely smart, empathetic (almost to a fault), and purposeful about how they go about executing.
There is a metric shedload of work yet to do. At about 3,000 people, we& #39;re understaffed. We are hiring aggressively.
If you want to work on extremely worthy challenges, in the service of entrepreneurs all over the Internet, with very good colleagues: https://stripe.com/jobs ">https://stripe.com/jobs"...
If you want to work on extremely worthy challenges, in the service of entrepreneurs all over the Internet, with very good colleagues: https://stripe.com/jobs ">https://stripe.com/jobs"...
