How to Prep for Big Tech Interview (Stripe) that isn't DSA?

I think this is referring to one of these 2 interview types:

1. Practical coding - You will have to create a small piece of software (simple website, a single REST endpoint, etc) from scratch and on-the-fly. Another option is the software is already there, but you need to debug/refactor it. Either way, I can easily see them asking you to write automated tests as a bonus. The best way to practice here is to build side projects with the relevant stacks. I think this interview type is more likely.
2. LeetCode Lite - The idea is that it's still a DSA problem, but it's wrapped in the Stripe business context so it's not as abstract. So maybe they'll give you a problem where you need to queue payments properly or something. Robinhood actually gave me this kind of problem (they also gave practical coding, which was weighed more heavily). For "LeetCode Lite" type problems, LeetCode is probably the best practice.

Stripe is also a massive company, so I recommend following the advice in the following Q&A as well to get more information: "How to figure out what's going to be on an interview?"

Thanks Alex! In my case, the relevant "stack" is Python, as that's what I'm experienced with and what I told them I'll be doing the interview in.

My question is, other than Leetcode, is there any way I can prep for this? I'm looking for a better way than Leetcode since I won't be asked a Leetcode question.

I've been reading a lot of engineering blogs lately to see what the state of the art is for particular systems. For instance, I'm reading blogs about how companies design their activity feeds because I want to make sure that the one my company has is as efficient and scalable as possible. Because a service like this has so many concepts embedded in it, it allows me to think beyond just the theory and really understand it from a product perspective.

Thanks Michael! Systems Design seems beyond the scope of the interview though. I feel like they want to focus on coding here.

I asked the recruiter how to prep and here's what he said:

Practicing leetcode problems shouldn't really be necessary - I think that part is just alluding to the practice of timing programming exercises since this is a finite session. And to clarify on that, speed is not really a metric we measure candidates on, but efficiency is. That's to say, spending time focused on the right/relevant things and not burning time on trivial aspects.

It's a real world problem so just being in an engineering role should be the kind of prep needed to do well here. Brushing up on some of the following wouldn't hurt as these are the main attributes we care about: clean/readable code, clean abstractions, methodical debugging, test coverage, communication, articulating technical concepts, being receptive to and leveraging feedback. 

I know that probably doesn't help as there isn't a tactical thing I can point to for preparation but that's my best advice! Let me know if I can clarify anything!

I'm heading to a final loop at Stripe. The main tips that I've found so far by talking to Stripe ICs are:

1. that the loop and even culture is pretty Amazon-like except there's a debugging round and coding is more applied less leetcode-ish (and the culture is slightly more bottom-up or "organized chaos" compared to amzn)
2. it's so Amazon-y in the culture that you can even refer to Amazon LPs at behavioral time and that's viewed as OK (better to refer to Stripe principals, but if you can't remember, the other works)
3. In particular, customer obsession is a shared top value. In Stripe's terms "Users first"
4. Stripe uses AWS under the hood so they are largely aligned on sys design as well
5. Absolutely do plug if you have used Striped as a user, even if in a non-commercial context like a side project
6. They've been focused on cost efficiency recently, so signaling skill there is a big plus. This may change over time (more generally, try to hear about what's top of mind for your target team and signal skill there).