Some time last year, I was craving Chinese hot pot and decided to order it from a local restaurant. On their website, when I was entering my credit card information to make a payment, I saw this line under the payment section: “securely processed by stripe”.
This piqued my interest and I Googled “Stripe”. Stripe is a fin-tech company that handles payment processing on various shopping platforms, including big companies like Amazon and Google as well as small vendors like the restaurant I ordered my hot pot from. It provides an API service that allows vendors to receive payments from their customers.
I was amazed at how a small component in a checkout page can be so substantial. For the average customer, they wouldn’t think twice about this minimal feature, but as someone who is studying computer science, I thought about the intricacies and the technology behind it.
I came across a Youtube video that explained the history of Stripe. The initial service started with just seven lines of code and now Stripe grew to be a company with hundreds of features and thousands of employees. Every successful company may look grand at the moment, but it is very important to look back at the years of hard work.
This coming December, I am graduating from this program with two internships under my belt. This allowed me to become a competitive applicant to respectable companies that I always dreamed of working for. What started from a Chinese hot pot order has now culminated to an opportunity to join such a company. In the coming week, I have my final technical interview with Stripe. Wish me luck!
