Learn how to prepare for Stripe interviews with this in-depth guide.
We break down the Stripe interview process and the top questions you should expect to answer.
About Stripe
What is Stripe?
Founded in 2011, Stripe is a dynamic fintech company that offers a unique opportunity to join a growing organization.
Although it’s already a significant player in the tech world, Stripe is still in its growth phase.
Where is Stripe located?
With headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and South San Francisco, US, Stripe builds financial infrastructure for the internet.
It employs over 8,000 people, known internally as “Stripes.”
Who does Stripe hire?
Stripe values passion over experience. Most employees don’t have a background in finance.
Stripe offers extensive internship programs, often hiring new graduates who have previously interned there.
Stripe Interview Guides
Get role-specific insights for Stripe interviews:
- Stripe Software Engineer (SWE) Interview Guide
- Stripe Engineering Manager (EM) Interview Guide
- Stripe Product Manager (PM) Interview Guide
Stripe Interview Process
The Stripe interview process includes:
- A recruiter phone screen,
- A technical assessment,
- Virtual on-site interviews.
Stripe is known for its high standards, so expect a thorough and challenging interview process.
How long does the interview process take?
Stripe's interview process takes about a month.
There is typically a 1–2 week gap between each stage.
Does Stripe's interview process vary by role?
Stripe’s interview process is consistent across roles.
Variations primarily occur during the initial phone screen and technical assessment.
For roles such as product management or data science, the initial call may be with a hiring manager instead of a recruiter.
Is there a take-home assignment?
Instead of an online assessment, some candidates may receive a take-home assignment before their on-site interviews.
Recruiter Phone Screen
The interview process at Stripe begins with a 30-minute phone call with a recruiter. For specific roles, this call might be with a hiring manager.
This initial screen evaluates your experience, cultural fit, and knowledge of Stripe.
What is the Stripe recruiter screen?
Be prepared to discuss:
- Your resume,
- Why are you interested in Stripe?
- Questions about the specific role and team.
To make a strong impression, highlight experiences that demonstrate your:
- Technical skills,
- Communication abilities,
- And leadership qualities
These are traits that Stripe values in all candidates.
Discuss your career goals and how they align with the role and team you’re applying for at Stripe.
How should I prepare for the recruiter call?
To prepare for the Stripe recruiter screen, research Stripe’s operating principles, keynote sessions, blog, products, and current projects to express your genuine interest.
Technical Screen
If you pass the recruiter screen, you’ll move on to the technical screen.
What is the Stripe technical screen?
For technical roles, such as software engineering, this involves a 1-hour coding assessment on CoderPad.
You will solve 1–2 problems in the language of your choice.
Most candidates will only have 1 technical assessment.
Senior positions might have a second round.
Is the technical screen difficult?
Stripe’s coding challenges often involve real-world scenarios.
Expect to solve problems based on practical Stripe situations rather than standard coding tasks.
The data structures and algorithms questions are typically of medium difficulty.
Stripe expects working code, not pseudocode.
Is there a non-technical screen?
For non-technical roles, expect a take-home assignment instead of a coding assessment.
Data roles often receive a report based on the provided datasets.
Product managers typically receive a case study.
On-Site Interviews
What is Stripe's on-site interview?
For technical roles, such as engineering, expect:
- coding,
- system design,
- integration,
- debugging,
There will also be discussions with a hiring manager focused on your previous experience and relevant skills.
On-site interviews for non-technical roles.
Non-technical roles will involve 1-on-1 interviews covering various aspects of the role.
If you completed a take-home assignment, you'll present it here.
Is there a behavioral component?
All candidates, regardless of their role, will undergo a behavioral assessment focusing on cultural fit and soft skills.
How long is Stripe's on-site interview?
Stripe’s on-site interviews are conducted virtually.
They typically consist of 4–6 rounds. Each round lasts 45–60 minutes.
Interviews are spread out over 1–2 days.
Stripe Interview Questions
These are examples of real interview questions asked at Stripe.
Behavioral
- Tell me about a time when you handled conflict.
- Tell me about a time you managed a difficult stakeholder.
- What are you looking for in your next role?
- Why do you want to work at Stripe?
- Why did you leave your last job?
- Tell me about a time when you worked on a tight deadline.
Coding
- Find the longest substring without repeating characters.
- Find the number of rotations in a circularly sorted array.
- Build a calculator.
- Describe the impact of a technical project you’ve worked on.
- Write a UI component to filter and display a list of purchases made by a user.
- Design an API rate limiter that can handle 100 requests per minute for each user.
System Design
- Design a distributed LRU cache.
- What is an API and how does it work?
- Design an application performance monitoring system.
- Design a rate limiter.
- Design a metrics service.
Data Science
- Given a dataset, construct a predictive model.
- How would you predict the value of a future customer?
- If you were to offer a small percentage of your customers access to a new feature, how would you decide who to offer it to?
- Tell me about a time the business problem wasn’t clearly defined. How did you handle it?
- Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision with a lot of uncertainty.
Machine Learning
- Design a machine learning model to predict customer churn.
- Design a model to analyze a specific set of time-series data.
- Analyze a dataset, develop a model, and assess its performance.
- Tell me about a machine learning project you worked on.
- How do you stay updated on advancements in machine learning?
Product Management
- Name three bad products. Choose one to improve.
- Tell me about a time you had to identify the root cause of a problem.
- How would you improve Stripe Payments?
- List three products you like and are knowledgeable about. Choose one, explain why you like it, and outline how you would adapt it for a new market segment.
- If an engineering team member isn’t performing well, what would you do as a PM?
Behavioral
The behavioral loop at Stripe focuses on:
- culture fit,
- teamwork,
- communication,
- entrepreneurship,
- and leadership skills.
To succeed, you should highlight your impact and past projects that demonstrate your skills in:
- conflict resolution,
- mentorship,
- and navigating ambiguity.
How should I prepare for behavioral questions at Stripe?
Prepare by reviewing Stripe’s Operating Principles. Practice aligning your anecdotes with these principles.
For behavioral interview questions, whenever possible, tie your answers to your past experiences.
Leadership is key at Stripe. Even if you’re not applying for a management role, emphasize your ability to lead.
Coding
Stripe’s coding rounds stand out for their focus on:
- debugging,
- integration,
- and practical questions,
There's also a general coding round.
How are coding rounds structured?
Each round lasts 45–60 minutes. It's conducted 1-on-1 with Stripe engineers.
The virtual on-site coding rounds include general coding, debugging, and integration.
What is the general coding round?
The general coding round will include questions similar to those in the technical assessment.
They focus on:
- data structures,
- algorithms,
- parsing strings,
- string manipulation,
- array manipulation,
- and dictionaries.
Be prepared for questions involving APIs and SDKs, as they play a significant role in many Stripe products.
What is the debugging round?
The debugging round typically involves designing a solution for an issue within a GitHub repository.
What is the integration round?
The integration round may require you to write code for a feature in a GitHub repo or work with an API.
To prepare, familiarize yourself with different codebases, download open-source repositories to an IDE, and practice implementing features.
What does Stripe look for in engineers?
In addition to strong technical skills, Stripe looks for engineers with entrepreneurial, communication, and empathy skills.
System Design
Stripe’s system design interviews are relatively standard compared to those of other big tech companies.
However, there's a strong emphasis on APIs.
How should I prepare for Stripe's system design round?
To prepare, get to know Stripe’s architecture.
Get to know their business model thoroughly. This way, you can explain why you make a particular design decision.
- Review Exponent’s API system design interview prep.
- Practice using whiteboard tools like Whimsical, which Stripe recommends for system design interviews.
Data Science
At Stripe, data analysts, data scientists, and engineers collaborate closely.
What are Stripe's data interviews?
In your on-site interviews, expect to be assessed on both your technical skills and your critical thinking process for solving data-related problems.
Think aloud to demonstrate your organized, data-driven approach to decision-making.
How are data science interviews structured?
Stripe’s data interviews typically consist of 3–4 one-hour rounds.
You’ll begin by presenting your take-home assignment report and answering questions about your findings.
The following rounds will test your knowledge of:
- SQL queries,
- data manipulation,
- data analysis,
- A/B testing,
- statistical forecasting,
- and a product analytics case study.
Be ready with examples from your past experience that highlight your relevant skills.
Machine Learning
Machine learning engineers at Stripe are responsible for the entire lifecycle of applied ML model development and deployment.
MLEs design, build, deploy, and operate Stripe’s payment decision-making systems, which are powered by ML.
What are Stripe's machine learning interviews?
In the ML interview loop, expect:
- case studies that involve data analysis,
- model development,
- and performance assessment.
You’ll also discuss fundamental ML concepts, including:
- model building,
- training,
- evaluation,
- and deployment.
Support your answers with examples from your past ML experience whenever possible.
How do I prepare for Stripe's machine learning interviews?
Get familiar with Stripe’s ML use cases.
Review Stripe’s Engineering blog and learn about Stripe’s ML-powered products:
Product Management
Stripe’s on-site interviews for product management include 3–4 one-hour loops focused on:
- Product sense,
- Technical skills,
- Product strategy,
- Execution.
Product sense
In the product sense interview, Stripe assesses your ability to generate high-level product ideas and improvements.
Be ready to answer questions about specific Stripe products or similar e-commerce products.
Technical questions
Technical interview questions test the hard skills needed for the role.
These might include:
- data-driven decision-making,
- understanding Stripe’s product ecosystems (such as product roadmaps and APIs),
- and communicating complex technical topics to stakeholders.
Product strategy
For product strategy questions, demonstrate your skills in product design, problem-solving, and long-term vision.
Back up your answers with past experience.
Execution
Execution questions assess how you make decisions in Stripe's product space.
Be prepared to explain your decision-making process, highlighting how you use metrics and data.
Stripe wants to understand how you implement ideas in an organized, communicative manner.
Stripe Interview Tips
Emphasize leadership and communication.
Stripe values leadership and communication in all candidates.
Highlight experiences that showcase these traits, even if you haven’t held a formal leadership role.
For instance, describe a time when you led a project or improved a process.
Provide examples of effective communication, such as overcoming challenges through collaboration or resolving issues by improving team communication.
Practice for Stripe’s unique coding rounds.
Stripe’s engineering final rounds include two unique interviews: integration and debugging.
Practice these rounds by familiarizing yourself with different codebases, downloading repositories to an IDE, and implementing features.
Show your commitment to continuous learning.
Stripe values professional development, which is evident in their thorough onboarding process and ongoing workshops led by both internal and external experts.
To stand out, mention how you commit to lifelong learning, demonstrating that you share Stripe’s value for continuous improvement.
FAQs
Can I get a job at Stripe without a finance background?
Yes. Most Stripe employees don’t have a background in finance or fintech.
Stripe values diverse perspectives from various fields, including engineering, design, operations, consulting, healthcare, and education.
Stripe welcomes both generalists and specialists who are eager to delve deeper into their field.
Does Stripe hire students and new graduates?
Stripe offers a robust internship program for undergrad and graduate students and often hires previous interns after graduation.
Stripe’s internships last 12–16 weeks and are available in locations like Dublin, San Francisco, and Singapore, with housing provided for some interns.
While Stripe primarily recruits engineers for its internships, it also offers opportunities in machine learning, data science, sales, business development, and strategy & operations.
For more information, visit Stripe’s University Recruiting page.
Does Stripe offer remote work?
Approximately 30–40% of Stripe employees work fully remotely. The rest follow hybrid or in-office schedules at Stripe offices in cities like Amsterdam, Bangalore, Barcelona, Berlin, Chicago, Dubai, Dublin, Hyderabad, London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo, and others.
Stripe Interview Prep
Exponent has extensive resources to prepare you to feel your best when it comes time for your interview at Stripe:
Browse Stripe interview questions
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