What a wonderful advertisement for working at Stripe. The impact of long-form well-written essays like this is huge, and fits perfectly with the theme of the essay itself about helping others succeed at scale.
I like the personal notes included a ton, e.g. mentioning that he has struggled with depression personally, which I wouldn't have guessed, even if naively so. Being open and helpful with those topics helps a lot of people out in a serious way. Also love quotes like "I cannot say this enough: pick your peer group wisely because you’re giving them write access to both your conscious thoughts and your entire worldview".
Just reading this post makes it tempting for me to apply at Stripe (They apparently have 530 roles open, wow! https://stripe.com/jobs/search), especially given all the other positive comments I've seen about the company.
> What a wonderful advertisement for working at Stripe.
Exactly, which is why some of this should be taken with a grain of salt.
By all accounts, Stripe really is a good place to work and their success speaks for itself. Yet, it's important to remember that this article is at least one part advertisement. I'm not suggesting anyone dismiss the contents, but keep the context in mind. The article goes to great lengths to speak about the positives of working at Stripe, but the section about terrible work/life balance is written vaguely enough for the reader to dismiss it as a personal quirk, for example.
However, it's important to keep in mind that patio11's popularity among developer communities is one of the reasons they hired him in the first place. He's paid to be a spokesperson for the company, among other things. He doesn't even try to hide that fact in the article:
> When I was hired, there was a fiction for my business cards but the job rounded to “Do anything required to make Stripe Atlas successful.” ... For about a year I was formally in the Marketing department
Indeed, the part about choosing peers to form one’s worldview really struck home for me. Probably also applies to who you follow on Twitter or which sites you read (like this one).
I like the personal notes included a ton, e.g. mentioning that he has struggled with depression personally, which I wouldn't have guessed, even if naively so. Being open and helpful with those topics helps a lot of people out in a serious way. Also love quotes like "I cannot say this enough: pick your peer group wisely because you’re giving them write access to both your conscious thoughts and your entire worldview".
Just reading this post makes it tempting for me to apply at Stripe (They apparently have 530 roles open, wow! https://stripe.com/jobs/search), especially given all the other positive comments I've seen about the company.