Stripe

Role: SDE2

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: August 2024

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Hard

Rounds: 2 (Engineering Manager Call, Coding Round)

Topics Asked: Resume discussion, Role expectations, Work culture, Coding (wrapper class, problem-solving with the wrapper, string parsing).

Experience:

The candidate had a "nightmare experience" interviewing for an SDE2 role at Stripe's India office.

Recruiter Contact: Recruiter reached out via email.

Engineering Manager Call: This was unexpectedly the first interview. The candidate was "grilled" on their resume and role expectations, including discussions about work culture and expectations.

Coding Round: This round was conducted on HackerRank. The question was presented in parts, building on each other.

• Part 1: Make a map-like class with a few modifications, for which the candidate built a wrapper class.
• Part 2: Use this wrapper to solve a simple problem and extend some functionality.
• Part 3: This part focused on taking input in a specified format, requiring string parsing. The candidate struggled with this, initially trying regex and then switching to splitting input strings and using if-else conditions.

The candidate passed all test cases with 10 minutes to spare in the coding round. However, after two weeks of radio silence, the recruiter informed them of a "very weak hire" feedback, citing that the interviewer noted the candidate "seemed to not know how Strings work in Java" and "wasted time trying the wrong approach". The candidate felt the experience was unprofessional and humiliating.