I applied through an employee referral. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Shopify in Apr 2016
Interview
Had three interviews with them. First was an informal interview where they just wanted to know more about me and if I was a good fit for the company. Talked about my life in general and how I got into programming. The interviewer tried to match me with a remote opening as I wasn't willing to relocate right now.
Second interview was about problem solving. No coding, just talking about what I would do if X happened. I would say it's more of scaling issues. My interview was with a developer on the team I applied for.
Third interview was with a lead/director. I was told that the chat would be about a topic I know really well, and that I would be able to direct the conversation to that. However, I learned they were looking specifically on how much I knew about X (certain skillsets), and to expound on my knowledge of that.
I didn't get an offer, but they sent me a list of things they were looking for to be successful in their team, and I get why they wanted someone more senior. It was a fun process nevertheless.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Tell me your lifestory, how did you get into programming
typical interview process, one round with hr. followed by a 75 min coding interview pair programming with one of the engineers. In the coding interview it was encouraged to use ai.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
create a autocomplete system for search based on a list of search frequencies.
There was a first round with hr followed by a 1hour interview, use of AI was encouraged. Interviewer was not very knowledgeable and I had to discover a solution that she understands
The interview was intense and definitely exceeded my expectations. The technical rounds were particularly challenging, but I felt prepared. One of the system design questions was about creating a webhook delivery system with various complexities, and I was relieved because I had explored that exact topic on PracHub just days before. After tackling some coding problems, I faced some behavioral questions that tested my thought process. Overall, the experience was demanding, but I was thrilled to receive an offer, which I happily accepted.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a webhook delivery system that retries on failure with exponential backoff. Cover idempotency, ordering guarantees, dead-letter queues, and how you'd handle a downstream consumer that's been offline for hours.