Gaslighting and no work life balance - Anonymous employee Stripe Employee Review

1.0
31 May 2024
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Salary Some colleagues (very few) That is all, actually

Cons

Leadership - they micromanage, I've never been part of a company where leadership still wants to hold such a strong grip on everything happening. This screams distrust and ultimately leads to tunnel vision. It's either their way or nothing. Work-life balance - there is no such thing. I am surprised to see some reviews where people say that they have this at Stripe. I have never interacted with anyone in this company who worked normal hours. They say that they value this, but it's a lie. No matter how hard you try, you cannot work normal hours. They have no strategic vision whatsoever - they say they make data-driven decisions. Complete nonsense. It's whatever leadership (aka founders) decides. Some people in Stripe are so gaslighted that they are starting to believe their own lies just because they are paid more than they would in any other company. Here I am talking only about people who joined Stripe some time ago. Don't expect those numbers now. Lack of transparency - you get hit with changes from one day to the other without any arguments, data. These are just communicated via email: even though it might affect one team or another, they never actually involve members of that team in the discussions before making that decision. You can find lack of transparency also with the "wonderful equity" that Stripe promises when you get hired: it's one of the world's mysteries because whenever you ask someone in Stripe about it, no one has actually gotten any actual money from it.

Explore other reviews about Stripe

5.0
3 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very fast moving env , colleges are good

Cons

nothing to say here , i am good

4.0
4 June 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.

280
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All