Applied online and received an invite from a recruiter in 2 weeks to schedule a coding exercise. The coding exercise is pretty simple, they are just looking to understand if you can code. Doesn't matter that you get to a solution. The interviewer was very friendly and guiding me along the way to get to the solution.
Round 2: After clearing the coding exercise, I was invited to a Life story interview for one hour with the recruiter followed by a management life story interview with a Senior Dev Manager for one hour. The life story exercise is similar to what others have mentioned - you talk about your life journey and you can control this conversation from where you like. Focus on how you get here while demonstrating Shopify values along the way citing examples if you can. The management life story focuses on your management experience. Standard questions around performance management, coaching and strategy.
Round 3: After clearing the life story round, I advanced into the final technical interviews. There are 3 technical interviews - first one is a pair programming exercise. You will share your IDE on Google Hangouts and work through the problem with the interviewer. The interviewer was again helpful in guiding me to a working solution. The problem is pretty simple, but focus on how you'd build a time and space efficient solution. Work through your approach with the interviewer before you start coding.
The second tech interview is a deep dive on a technical project you've worked on. I'd suggest finding a project that involves a full stack if possible with integrations to other systems.
The third tech interview is a technical problem solving exercise which is a system design session. The problem is very focused, so you don't have to build out a full design. There is a trick in the requirement which I will post in the interview questions below which you'll have to be aware of. You'll be using Google Jamboard to draw the design and jamboard doesnt' have all shapes to be able to draw fast. So I suggest using a tablet with a stylus if you can to draw the design as using your mouse to draw shapes takes time. A suggestion for Shopify is to provide the problem statement 15 minutes before the interview so candidates can formulate their thoughts and draw the design before the interview so the interview discussion is more productive. Without a white board and not having the right remote tools, this is a better way to conduct a system design interview.
Overall, a fantastic candidate experience. All interviewers were genuinely interested in the discussion and want you to succeed.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Given a string where each char presents parts, determine how many products you can build with those parts. A dictionary is provided with the product and its parts composition
System design problem: Build a solution to manage rare books in a library. Create a condition report based on the condition of the book during last return. Compare last 10 scanned images of the book to determine the most recent condition
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Shopify in Oct 2025
Interview
Passed the technicals and had multiple EMs say I could join at team match but opaquely got declined at hiring committee.
It’s a generalized interview track then team match happens at the end but the recruiter seemed confused / off put that I wanted to talk to multiple teams. Really odd.
Talked to the recruiter, had a pair coding interview that was to be followed by the other interviews. Apparently, pair coding is required for absolutely all levels which is good. Also, there is a strange test before all that - not sure what is it about,
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Asked me to write a relatively simple code which I have without any problems. Have not finished as they offered to ask questions. Declined for no apparent reason.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Shopify in Mar 2022
Interview
Was headhunted on LinkedIn by a recruiter who reached out to set up an initial call, which they later rescheduled. Then they were late to the 2nd call and seemed incredibly flustered. Went through a few rushed questions and then passed on to the next stage. I got the impression that even if I had further questions this recruiter was not going to be quick to respond. (Bad vibes immediately)
Life Story & Management Story (2 hours long back to back)
Life Story:
I had read the comments here about the life story and can confirm they are accurate. But one thing I found was I was faced with a recruiter who you could tell had just done one too many life stories haha (I can only imagine having to do this type of interview day in day out as a recruiter... pure torture)
I went through all my past experience which is quite flavored in terms of engineering and management and felt I had done a good job here but just got the impression the recruiter could care less. She even told me that there were lots of people applying and basically alluded to the fact that it was going to be a slog to get in.
Management Interview:
Met with a Senior Engineering Manager who in fairness was very pleasant and easy to talk to but as an EM who is very much a part of the hiring process myself, I just felt the questions he was asking were way too broad and didn't really enable me to get the examples I had in my arsenal out. The questions would bounce around from topic to topic and never allowed for any real depth to emerge.
He gave me lots of time to ask questions and his answers were very sharp so I knew he was on point and a person I could learn from but again the interview was overall underwhelming.
Received no direct feedback from my recruiter but was just sent an email to say I passed this round and to schedule a time to set up the technical round. I chose not to continue as I had several other interviews running in parallel that were far more inspiring. I didn't see the point in giving them any more of my time on the off chance I would get an offer, especially seen as they don't disclose salary or what team/product you would be working on.
Even though I think Shopify is a great product I think they have missed the mark in terms of how they recruit, just overall very cold and impersonal which is a HUGH red flag now that they are fully remote. I just got the impression you would be siloed away and just expected to deliver.
