I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 months. I interviewed at Shopify in Feb 2024
Interview
Split-brained process throughout. Got pinged by their recruiter then ghosted for two months before they randomly picked up out of the blue like nothing had happened. Kept going back and forth on whether the role was a leadership or IC role as well. Org was also led by a Distinguished Engineer rather than a dedicated engineering leader, which may explain why the process was so disorganized. Got a message from the recruiter that I hit it out of the park and had an extremely strong interview packet, followed by a rejection email the next day. No explanation why.
The actual interviews consisted of a screen with someone who wasn't the hiring manager, followed by a system design question, ML skills Q&A, technical deep dive, and chat with an engineering lead. The interviews were generally easy but the process was pretty slow.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design an ML-driven solution to a recommendation problem