Rocketship to impeding doom - Launch Engineer Shopify Employee Review

1.0
Aug 4, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nice coworkers Good pay Good benefits Fridays off in the summer (Only a pro if you're in a non-merchant facing role however)

Cons

Leaving my successful career to join Shopify has become my biggest regret. I feel scammed and trapped. All the linkedin marketing about culture is a lie. I was grossly mislead. They don't tell you that every merchant-facing job is just glorified customer support, where you have to deal with 40+ merchants who have been lied too during the sales process. You are thrown into the thick of it with little to no training. I have been yelled at and abused my my merchants for things out of my control. You are expected to work 24/7, even if they don't explicitly say that. The work keeps piling up and there's no hope for relief. Shopify gave all of it's employees friday's off, but what they don't tell you is that you will end up working those days anyways due to the influx of merchant requests. The job is way too ambiguous, and you end up just acting like customer support. Nobody I know signed up to be customer support but we were all lied too. We were never told that we'd have to answer complex theme questions or help troubleshoot API's. Most people joining this role think they're becoming a Customer Success Manager, not a support person. Every night i go to sleep afraid to wake up and to go to work. Working at Shopify has made me feel like a prisoner in my own home. It sounds overdramatic, but I sit in fear of the next email that will come into my inbox. Working here has been the most stressed that i've ever been in my life. I never get to eat my lunch because it's just work work work. There's no work/life balance. Your work IS your life now. I can't leave my house without bringing my work laptop with me, even during a trip to the cottage. My friends and family have been worried about me since i've been working so late every night. There is definitely a popular clique(cult) at Shopify, and if you're not in it, there will be no career progression for you. Also there are very unfair differences and division of work between teams, ie some teams have never used their email before, never talk to merchants but somehow get to have game nights and pizza parties while getting paid more. Do not believe the hype that you see on linkedin, the culture sucks. most people are overworked. You will develop severe anxiety and depression. The pay is good but it is not worth being a punching bag for merchants.

Explore other reviews about Shopify

5.0
Jul 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazing company with incredible product

Cons

None that I can think of

2.0
Jun 29, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Kind and talented co-workers - Generous AI token spend - Fairly transparent company (has been getting less transparent over the years) - Lots of opportunity for impact

Cons

- Product management discipline is quite lacking since the new CTO joined - Microsoft culture is adding more chaos and stress, and causing projects to actually go slower - Managers are afraid to tell the truth to Mikhail about the loopholes in engineering; they just want to look good, so they rush their teams to ship crap - Top engineering leaders are moving out of management roles or leaving the company - Tobi used to be far more involved in ensuring a high engineering bar, but seems to have handed over the reins to the new Microsoft regime

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