Shopify

Software Developer Interview Experience - Ottawa, Canada

April 1, 2016

Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I had a Skype call with a recruiter. It was a nice, casual talk about my history, work experience, college, etc.

After that, I had an interview with a lead developer. It was a little tough, as I didn't expect to be asked about scalability or how to handle millions of rows.

I was asked about APIs, Rails, and Ruby. All was simple except the scaling questions.

Questions

How to handle the growth of databases after 1 million records.

How most relations got translated to SQL.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 23 interview experiences for the Shopify Software Developer role in Ottawa, Ontario.

Success Rate

35%

Pass Rate

Shopify's interview process for their Software Developer roles in Ottawa, Ontario is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive65%

Neutral22%

Negative13%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Shopify's Software Developer interview process in Ottawa, Ontario.

Shopify Work Experiences

Great company with a great benefits package

Software Developer • Current Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

January 5, 2020

Pros: RSUs, free food, a lifestyle spending account, and super talented and friendly coworkers.

Cons: The company moves quite quickly, and things aren't always well written down and documented, which makes it hard at times to keep up with the latest status of things.

Great company with a great benefits package

Software Developer • Current Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

January 5, 2020

Pros: RSUs, free food, a lifestyle spending account, and super talented and friendly coworkers.

Cons: The company moves quite quickly, and things aren't always well written down and documented, which makes it hard at times to keep up with the latest status of things.

Good office, but a very intense work environment

Software Developer • Former Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Pros: A great office to work in.

Cons: - Very intense work environment.

Good office, but a very intense work environment

Software Developer • Former Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Pros: A great office to work in.

Cons: - Very intense work environment.

An unfortunately poisonous culture

Software Developer • Current Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

January 20, 2015

Pros: Generous benefits, time off, and travel ability.

Cons: There is definitely a culture of superiority, arrogance, and a belief that we know something the rest of the world doesn't. What we do is not rocket science. But developers are overly valued as gods, and we forsake infrastructure, solid planning, resource management, and responsible governance. It's easy to say we're successful because we have cash coming in the door, but what lies beneath the cash is actually a quite poorly managed and led company.

An unfortunately poisonous culture

Software Developer • Current Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

January 20, 2015

Pros: Generous benefits, time off, and travel ability.

Cons: There is definitely a culture of superiority, arrogance, and a belief that we know something the rest of the world doesn't. What we do is not rocket science. But developers are overly valued as gods, and we forsake infrastructure, solid planning, resource management, and responsible governance. It's easy to say we're successful because we have cash coming in the door, but what lies beneath the cash is actually a quite poorly managed and led company.

Great company with a great benefits package

Software Developer • Current Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

January 5, 2020

Pros: RSUs, free food, a lifestyle spending account, and super talented and friendly coworkers.

Cons: The company moves quite quickly, and things aren't always well written down and documented, which makes it hard at times to keep up with the latest status of things.

5.0
Great company with a great benefits package
Software Developer • Current Employee
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
January 5, 2020
Pros: RSUs, free food, a lifestyle spending account, and super talented and friendly coworkers.
Cons: The company moves quite quickly, and things aren't always well written down and documented, which makes it hard at times to keep up with the latest status of things.

Good office, but a very intense work environment

Software Developer • Former Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Pros: A great office to work in.

Cons: - Very intense work environment.

4.0
Good office, but a very intense work environment
Software Developer • Former Employee
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
July 23, 2025
Pros: A great office to work in.
Cons: - Very intense work environment.

An unfortunately poisonous culture

Software Developer • Current Employee

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

January 20, 2015

Pros: Generous benefits, time off, and travel ability.

Cons: There is definitely a culture of superiority, arrogance, and a belief that we know something the rest of the world doesn't. What we do is not rocket science. But developers are overly valued as gods, and we forsake infrastructure, solid planning, resource management, and responsible governance. It's easy to say we're successful because we have cash coming in the door, but what lies beneath the cash is actually a quite poorly managed and led company.

1.0
An unfortunately poisonous culture
Software Developer • Current Employee
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
January 20, 2015
Pros: Generous benefits, time off, and travel ability.
Cons: There is definitely a culture of superiority, arrogance, and a belief that we know something the rest of the world doesn't. What we do is not rocket science. But developers are overly valued as gods, and we forsake infrastructure, solid planning, resource management, and responsible governance. It's easy to say we're successful because we have cash coming in the door, but what lies beneath the cash is actually a quite poorly managed and led company.

Shopify Interview Questions

Walking Robot Simulation

Simulate a robot's movement on an infinite grid based on a sequence of commands and obstacles. Determine the square of the robot's final Euclidean distance from the origin.

ArraysGreedy Algorithms

LRU Cache

Design a data structure that acts as a Least Recently Used (LRU) cache. Implement methods to get and put key-value pairs, evicting the least recently used entry when the cache is full.

Design In-Memory File System

Implement an in-memory file system with basic operations like creating directories, adding files, and listing contents. The file system should support path-based navigation.

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