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Comment by davidbanham | Hacker News Reader

> Many successful Stripes ensure that they have dinner with their families or friends almost every evening.

Oof. Two weasel words in the one sentence. Especially in such an important sentence, that shoots up a big red flag for me.

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Personal anecdote; I interviewed for Stripe @ Tokyo and had a few discussions on this point.

I was pretty sure, based on the research and discussions I had with people in the company, that they did take family very seriously, certainly much more seriously than the corporation I am working for currently.

I didn't get the job, but I believed it enough that I was ready to join if an offer was made. I like to think of myself as a dedicated father to 3 young children.

Problem is, Tokyo is among the worst places on the planet to work in terms of both business culture and commuting if you expect to be at home by 6 in time for dinner.

I find it much more likely to be stuck at that for more domestic companies (like the company I'm leaving) than for IT companies. Even then it is not inevitable.

Once I decided I didn't want to torture myself or my subordinates it became very easy to kill that culture - on my team at least. I told HR that I would not do OT until they provided x FTEs (which was slightly less than the peak usage rate of my team). When they balked at hiring, I told my team members to go home at 5:45 every day. Suddenly urgent dev requests are not urgent anymore and we have less meetings.

If one's manager is selfish or weak, he or she probably wants to score brownie points off of a subordinate's service overtime. It's easy for them to say "this is how it is in Japan" - but it's not a Japanese thing, just a weak leadership thing

Most bizzare thing about Japan is high suicide rate (perhaps due to high stress [1]).

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan#Ties_with_bus...

This would have been a better link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi

Translation: wake up, work, go to the gym, get dinner, work more, go to bed, wake up, work. See- it's flexible! :P

There's quite a number of people still there after, say, 10pm.

I'm not sure they're weasel words when they own up to it in the next sentence:

But working here will mean some late nights, some weekends, and (especially if you end up in a position of significant responsibility) paying attention to email even during off-hours.

So you either don't work there as a parent or you become the caricature father from the 90s movies that misses all of his kids' games, fails to pick them up from school (although we solved this with Uber (TM)) etc.

At least they are being honest and upfront about it, IMO. Much better to do things this way than to do what some other companies do: promise 40-45 hour work weeks yet shame/withhold bonuses and raises to anybody not putting in over 50 hr/week.

Does Stripe compensate employees for working nights, weekends, and "paying attention" (really, being on call) off hours checking email? Or does it get rolled into the usual "salary"?

This paragraph is to me the number one indicator for a healthy and respectful company culture:

"We work hard to staff projects realistically. If overtime is needed we either compensate you by paying for additional hours or you can take the time off later."

This makes me feel like I am being respected.

As long as experience of employees within the org confirm the culture. Otherwise it's just marketing of a secretly abusive work culture.

My personal rule is that the more someone needs to talk about their values and their goodness the less likely they live them.

Expect 0 compensation. It's what's written in the guide.

That seems a bit hyperbolic

Is that saying that you have to go out of your way to ensure you can be home for dinner?

edit: It didn't sound as nuts as Netflix's hiring manifesto, but something about it still seems fishy.

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