Stripe Data Engineer Interview Questions + Guide in 2024

Stripe is a leading financial infrastructure platform that empowers millions of companies, from growing startups to global enterprises, to accept payments, increase revenue, and explore new business opportunities. Our mission is to augment the internet’s GDP, creating vast opportunities for everyone to engage meaningfully in the global economy.

At Stripe, Data Engineers are pivotal in building and optimizing data pipelines and products that drive our Growth, Sales, and Marketing teams. You’ll work on vital services, leveraging technologies like Scala, Spark, and Airflow to manage data critical for business performance. This position requires you to collaborate across departments, ensuring data integrity and facilitating data-driven decision-making.

In this guide, we will walk you through the interview process, covering typical Stripe data engineer interview questions and offering insights to help you prepare effectively. Let’s get started!

The interview process usually depends on the role and seniority; however, you can expect the following on a Stripe data engineer interview:

Recruiter/Hiring Manager Call Screening

If your CV is among the shortlisted few, a recruiter from the Stripe Talent Acquisition Team will contact you and verify key details like your experiences and skill level. Behavioral questions may also be part of the screening process.

Sometimes, the Stripe data engineer hiring manager stays present during the screening round to answer your queries about the role and the company itself. They may also indulge in surface-level technical and behavioral discussions.

The whole recruiter call should take about 30 minutes.

Technical Virtual Interview

Successfully navigating the recruiter round will invite you to the technical screening round. Technical screening for the Stripe Data Engineer role is usually conducted through virtual means, including video conference and screen sharing. Questions in this one-hour interview stage may revolve around Stripe’s data systems, ETL pipelines, and SQL queries.

In the case of data engineering roles, coding challenges are incorporated, typically related to array processing and data manipulation tasks. Code quality, speed, and adherence to good coding practices are essential factors in this round.

Onsite Interview Rounds

After a second recruiter call outlining the next stage, you’ll be invited to attend the on-site interview loop. During your day at the Stripe office, multiple interview rounds, varying with the role, will be conducted. Your technical prowess, including programming and data engineering capabilities, will be evaluated against the finalized candidates throughout these interviews.

If you were assigned take-home exercises, a presentation round may also await you during the onsite interview for the Data Engineer role at Stripe.

Typically, interviews at Stripe vary by role and team, but commonly, Data Engineer interviews follow a fairly standardized process across these question topics.

1. How would you improve Google Maps?

As the PM on Google Maps, what specific improvements would you implement? What metrics would you check to see if your feature improvements are successful?

2. What metrics/graphs/models would you use to analyze Netflix subscription churn?

If you work for a company like Netflix with two pricing plans ($15/month or $100/year), what metrics, graphs, or models would you build to analyze the churn behavior of users subscribing to either plan?

3. How would you decrease tech debt and developer turnaround time at a fintech startup?

If management at a fintech startup raises concerns about increased developer hours due to tech debt, how would you address decreasing tech debt and improving developer turnaround time?

4. How would you determine if implementing a payment feature in Facebook Messenger is a good business decision?

Facebook is considering a payment feature in Messenger that is similar to Venmo. How would you evaluate whether this is a good business decision?

5. Write a function stopwords_stripped to remove stop words from a string and convert it to lowercase.

Given a list of stop words, write a function stopwords_stripped that takes a string and returns a string stripped of the stop words with all lowercase characters.

6. Write a query to get the last transaction for each day from a table of bank transactions.

Given a table of bank transactions with columns id, transaction_value, and created_at, write a query to get the last transaction for each day. The output should include the transaction’s ID, the transaction’s datetime, and the transaction amount ordered by datetime.

7. Write a function to return the maximum number in a list of integers.

Given a list of integers, write a function that returns the maximum number in the list. If the list is empty, return None.

8. Create a function custom_sort to sort an array of strings by letters and numbers.

You are given an array of strings arr, where each string is in the format: <letters><number>. Write a function called custom_sort(arr), which sorts the list of strings first by the letter in alphabetical order and second by the numbers in descending order.

9. What is the expected number of good ads rated by different types of raters?

1. Suppose we have 100 raters, each rating one ad independently. What’s the expected number of good ads?
2. Now, suppose we have 1 rater rating 100 ads. What’s the expected number of good ads?
3. Suppose we have 1 ad rated as bad. What’s the probability the rater was lazy?

10. How do you simulate coin tosses with a given probability of heads?

Write a function that takes the number of tosses and the probability of heads as input and returns a list of randomly generated results (‘H’ for heads, ’T’ for tails) equal in length to the number of tosses.

11. How do you calculate the sample variance of a list of integers?

Write a function that takes a list of integers as input and outputs the sample variance, rounded to 2 decimal places.

12. What is the probability of rolling at least one 3 with dice?

1. What’s the probability of rolling at least one 3 with 2 dice?
2. What’s the probability of rolling at least one 3 given (N) dice?

13. What is the probability of finding an item on Amazon’s website given its availability in warehouses?

Given that the probability of item X being available at warehouse A is 0.6 and at warehouse B is 0.8, what is the probability that item X would be found on Amazon’s website?

Here are some tips on how you can ace your Stripe data engineer interview:

1. Focus on Data Systems and Pipelines: As the role involves managing critical data leveraged across the organization, ensure you are well-versed in designing and optimizing data pipelines and working with big data frameworks.

2. Brush Up on Coding Skills: A coding challenge focusing on array processing and data manipulation is likely. Prioritize understanding of efficient coding practices and be prepared to implement them swiftly.

3. Understand the Business Context: Familiarize yourself with Stripe’s mission, its Growth, Sales, and Marketing functions, and how data engineering supports these areas. Demonstrating this understanding can set you apart from other candidates.

What is the average salary for a Data Engineer at Stripe?

What qualifications are required for the Data Engineer position at Stripe?

Minimum requirements include:

• 3+ years of experience in a Data Engineering or Software Engineering role.
• Strong engineering background with a focus on data.
• Experience with distributed data frameworks (Spark, Hadoop, etc.).
• Knowledge of languages such as Scala or Python, SQL, Java, Go, and front-end frameworks like React.
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills.

What is Stripe’s working environment like?

Stripe supports a hybrid working model, requiring employees to spend at least 50% of their time in local offices. This promotes better collaboration, efficiency, and informal learning opportunities, fostering a stronger community and helping build Stripe’s culture.

Stripe remains at the forefront, driven by innovative and data-centric engineering efforts as the financial landscape continues to evolve. By focusing on the tips provided and demonstrating your ability to code efficiently—even under pressure—you’ll stand a chance to make a mark at Stripe.

For more insights, don’t forget to check out our interview guides for other roles, such as Software Engineers and Data Scientists, at Stripe. Engage with our growing community, exchange ideas, and prepare for this exciting career step.

Ready to take your career to the next level? Good luck with your interview!