John got an offer as a Software engineer at Stripe

Headshot of John
Name John Z
New Position Software engineer at Stripe
Location Remote, USA
Date of Offer March 2022
Coaching Sessions 4

What most excites you about your new job?

The scale and breadth of Stripe's product offering. And that I'll be building highly available systems.

Where were you previously?

Lyft

What was your preparation strategy?

I prepared during roughly 2 months, averaging 5-10 hours per week. This consisted of: - Doing some Leetcode to increase my speed on programming problems. - Thinking through examples from my experience to use in experience interviews. - Listening to YouTube talks from Amazon principal engineers on what's required to operate at Staff+. - Practicing design interviews, reviewing docs for all the AWS systems I've used in the past, memorizing the tradeoffs that come with each of them. Finally, I did some mock system design interviews with IGotAnOffer.

What was the hardest part of the whole interview process?

Finding the right coach to help me see my blind spots. IGotAnOffer was the golden ticket in that regard.

Do you have any final tips for other candidates?

Design questions range from highly constrained, to completely open-ended, and from billions in scale with global distribution down to the one I got, which was designing a room reservation system for just one hotel. With such variation, I think it's difficult to prepare for all of these effectively. Better to find a company that asks questions aligned with your interests.

Did any of the interview questions stand out?

System design questions range from highly constrained, to completely open-ended, and from billions in scale down to a single hotel. It's difficult to prepare for all of these effectively. Better to find a company that asks questions aligned with your interests.

Do you have any final tips for other candidates?

Interviews are imperfect. Don't get discouraged! Keep hustling until you land a great offer (or three)!

What coaches would you recommend working with?

Photo of Geoff M., an interview coachSuper coach badge icon for our top interview coaches
Supercoach
Geoff M.
Engineering manager
Site reliability engineer
Software engineer
Interview coaching company iconGoogle, Microsoft
Interview coaching location iconToronto timezone
Positive Interview coaching reviews icon
Geoff M. can’t be booked for the next 4 weeks. We recommend looking for another coach.
Photo of Suman B., an interview coach
Suman B.
Engineering manager
Software engineer
Interview coaching company iconAmazon
Interview coaching location iconToronto timezone
Positive Interview coaching reviews icon
Suman B. can’t be booked for the next 4 weeks. We recommend looking for another coach.
Photo of Kunal C., an interview coach
Kunal C.
Engineering manager
Software engineer
Interview coaching company iconAmazon, Google, Microsoft
Interview coaching location iconToronto timezone
Positive Interview coaching reviews icon
Kunal C. can’t be booked for the next 4 weeks. We recommend looking for another coach.

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