About
I'm Alex Dixon, an engineering leader at Stripe. I lead a team of Integration Reliability Engineers who work directly with Stripe merchants and financial partners to deploy card programs, debug integrations, and keep things running across a lot of transaction volume.
Before Stripe I spent six years at Fast Enterprises deploying software for government agencies. Driver's licenses, vehicle registrations, unemployment systems. The kind of software where downtime actually matters to people. I was customer-facing the whole time, handling everything from requirements through go-live and production support. It was a grind, but it shaped how I think about shipping software more than anything else I've done.
I carried that background into Stripe and into how I think about building teams. I care a lot about engineers who can go deep technically and also sit across from a customer and own an outcome. At Stripe I've focused on growing that kind of engineer, through Staff promotions, career frameworks, and working through hard problems together.
Where I've been
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2024 – now
Stripe · Manager, Integration Reliability Engineering
Leading the team that architects and launches Issuing card programs for everyone from early-stage startups to enterprises.
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2022 – 2024
Stripe · Integration Reliability Engineer
Launched card programs with merchants, card networks, and banking partners, and built internal tooling that cut manual work along the way.
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2020 – 2022
Fast Enterprises · Manager, Implementation Consultant
Led a team of seven onsite at the Massachusetts RMV, shipping rollouts for a platform serving 6.8 million people without critical downtime.
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2016 – 2020
Fast Enterprises · Implementation Consultant
Embedded in Boston building the licensing and registration systems behind millions of transactions a year, from requirements through go-live.
How I work
- Own the outcome, not the ticket. The work isn't done when the code merges. It's done when the customer launches.
- Downtime happens to people, not systems. I learned reliability on software where an outage meant someone couldn't renew a license or file for unemployment.
- Go deep, then sit across the table. The engineers I trust most can debug the integration and then explain it to the customer in plain language.
- Be there at go-live. Nothing shapes how you build like watching your software meet its users.
Outside of work, cooking is how I unwind. I smoke a lot of meat, lean toward southern-style cooking, and have a running obsession with fermentation: hot sauces, pickles, anything that takes patience and a mason jar. My wife is Italian, so our kitchen has a second life making fresh pasta and pizza dough from scratch. Lately I've also been roasting my own coffee, which has turned into a genuine education in where the thing you drink every morning actually comes from. I'm using this site to document recipes for my family. If that's why you're here, head to the recipes.