I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Shopify (Ottawa, ON) in Jul 2020
Interview
I applied at Shopify in late April and received an invite to chat about a month later. The first interview was a quick 15-30 minute chat about why I wanted to work at Shopify, why I wanted to leave my current employer, etc. After the call, I received an invite to schedule two additional meetings: a “life story” interview and a “coding exercise”.
The life story interview was pretty straight forward, you talk about your life and experiences and how you ended up where you are now. After that was the coding exercise which was just over an hour long and revolved around creating multiple algorithms required to apply discount prices to a store checkout.
After those interviews, I waited about 8 days before being invited to 3 additional interviews: the deep dive, coding exercise 2 and coding exercise 3. The deep dive interview involved talking about projects that I was proud of and challenges I overcame while working on them. I suggest that you prepare beforehand with information about the project so that you can talk for the full +1h interview. The coding challenges are similar to the initial exercise, you are given a problem and they give you about 1h to solve it.
After this, I waited about 7 days before being invited to a call where they told me that they would be making an offer. I was able to talk to the team lead prior to signing anything which helped me learn if the position was a good fit for me.
Overall the process was long but very professional and friendly.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- Why do you want to work for Shopify?
- What are some projects that you've worked on?
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Shopify
Interview
- recruiter talk
- technical interview
- life store interview
The recruiter talk was really about understanding what role is about and also a chance for them to assess your background with some general conversation. What you do at your current work, compensation expectation, your regular workday...
The technical interview was an easy problem and they are only interested in your output. Not how you think and approach to the problem, not stating your assumptions, not understanding edge cases of the problem, only the output so you might as well shut up and code and show the result.
The life story interview was absolute waste of time. This session lead by recruiter and to be honest they are not interested in your life story at all. Not clear how they are assessing this round but I believe it is not an objective assessment. I answered the recruiter questions in an honest way but seems like you need to pretend like you are dying to work for Shopify, classic 'fake it until you make it' mentality.
Feedback was we are moving forward with other candidates. Such a waste of time, it takes them 3 sessions to understand my background is not aligned with the role.
The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Shopify in Jul 2020
Interview
1 hr life story
1 hr technical interview
To be honest the technical interview was good
But the interviewer gave feedback that I ‘over complicated’ my solution.
I really was surprised because I was talking and describing clearly my thought process and asking questions. What is so bad in over complicating a solution??
when I was able to get a solution before time. It just beats me.
Shopify technical interviewers could discuss this and give room for the interviewee to think.
It’s a pity that they didn’t let me go to the next round. They don’t know what they’re missing.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
There are some sets of strings that map to an item
Given a string, determined the number of items