I was headhunted on LinkedIn by a recruiter who reached out to set up an initial call. They later rescheduled this call.

Then, they were late to the second call and seemed incredibly flustered. They asked a few rushed questions and then passed me to the next stage. I got the impression that even if I had further questions, this recruiter was not going to be quick to respond. (Bad vibes immediately).

Life Story & Management Story (2 hours long, back to back)

Life Story: I had read the comments here about the life story interview and can confirm they are accurate. However, I found that I was faced with a recruiter who, you could tell, had just done one too many life stories. I can only imagine having to do this type of interview day in and day out as a recruiter – pure torture.

I went through all my past experience, which is quite varied in terms of engineering and management. I felt I had done a good job here, but I just got the impression the recruiter could care less. She even told me that there were lots of people applying and basically alluded to the fact that it was going to be a slog to get in.

Management Interview: I met with a Senior Engineering Manager who, in fairness, was very pleasant and easy to talk to. But as an EM, and someone who is very much a part of the hiring process myself, I just felt the questions he was asking were too broad. They didn't really enable me to get the examples I had in my arsenal out. The questions bounced around from topic to topic and never allowed for any real depth to emerge.

He gave me lots of time to ask questions, and his answers were very sharp, so I knew he was on point and a person I could learn from. But again, the interview was overall underwhelming.

I received no direct feedback from my recruiter but was just sent an email to say I passed this round and to schedule a time for the technical round. I chose not to continue as I had several other interviews running in parallel that were far more inspiring. I didn't see the point in giving them any more of my time on the off chance I would get an offer, especially since they don't disclose salary or what team/product you would be working on.

Even though I think Shopify is a great product, I think they have missed the mark in terms of how they recruit. It's just overall very cold and impersonal, which is a huge red flag now that they are fully remote. I just got the impression you would be siloed away and just expected to deliver.

How did you get into management?