Stripe

Financial Infrastructure — Elite Engineering & Writing Culture

2010
Founded by Patrick & John Collison
San Francisco
Headquarters
~8,000
Employees
~$91B
Valuation
Culture Overview

What it's really like to work at Stripe

Founded in 2010 by Patrick and John Collison, Stripe has built one of the most respected engineering cultures in tech. The company is known for its elite writing culture where design docs and memos drive decisions, its rigorous code review processes, and its long-term thinking approach to building financial infrastructure. Expect intellectual rigor, top-tier compensation, and genuinely hard distributed systems problems at internet scale.

Eng-Driven Learning Equity Product Impact Transparent
Glassdoor Ratings

What employees actually say

4.0
Overall Glassdoor Score
Based on 2,800 reviews
Culture & Values 4.1
Work-Life Balance 3.6
Compensation & Benefits 4.5
Career Opportunities 3.8
Senior Management 3.7
Overall Rating 4.0
80% Recommend to a Friend
82% CEO Approval (Patrick Collison)
Employee Review Themes

The good and the hard parts

✓ What employees love

  • ✓ Engineering culture is elite — internal tools, code quality, and writing culture are best-in-class
  • ✓ Top compensation in fintech — competitive base, equity, and benefits
  • ✓ Solving genuinely hard distributed systems problems at massive scale
  • ✓ Intellectual rigor and long-term thinking — decisions are well-reasoned and documented

✗ What could be better

  • ✗ Perfectionism can slow shipping — high bar for quality sometimes means slower velocity
  • ✗ The 2022–23 layoffs affected team morale — the company has been working to rebuild confidence
  • ✗ Promotion process is opaque — criteria and timelines can feel unclear
  • ✗ Work-life balance struggles in payments and infrastructure teams
Engineering Culture

How the engineering team works

Tech Stack

Ruby Go Java Scala

Internal Tools

Built Sorbet, a Ruby type-checker, and a world-class internal API platform. Strong culture of building developer tools that improve engineering velocity.

Writing Culture

Design docs and written memos drive all major decisions. Engineers are expected to write clearly and think rigorously before building. Read the eng blog →

Team Structure

Well-structured teams with clear ownership areas. Code review is thorough and collaborative. Engineers own their systems end-to-end, from design to production.

Open Positions

Join the Stripe team

Explore featured roles below, or browse all 25 open positions on the full jobs board.

See all 25 Stripe jobs →