I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Shopify (Ottawa, ON) in Jun 2016
Interview
Just to clear up some confusion. I don't live anywhere near Shopify so all my interviews was via Skype. I applied back in April - May of 2016. The hiring process didn't start till June, since the hiring process start it only took less than 3 weeks. Considering I live in the Bay Area that is an extremely fast process.
I was asked about my life story. Some might think they are being too personal. But if you are joining a new family, I'm sure everyone wants to know who you are and if you're a good culture fit. They also ask what team I feel comfortable working at, either frontend or backend. That shows how much they care about my happiness working there.
Second was to show off your project or something you contributed to.
Third and last is a coding challenge which wasn't that hard at all. I'm sure they change it every time.
Overall the whole experience of Shopify interview process is to see if you are a good fit. They can teach you to code, they can't teach you how to be you. I love the whole process and everyone was so friendly and open. I have done a lot of research and why I want to join them before I applied. I believe that not just doing what you like is important but also whom you're working for is also important. Good luck to you all and hope you found this helpful.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Life story
2. Show off your project(s)
3. Coding challenge
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.