A recruiter contacted me via LinkedIn to see if I was interested in a position with Shopify.

I am working full-time, and had to schedule around my deployments, so from start to finish the process took over 2 months.

About a week after contact, I was able to schedule my initial screening interview. This was a 15-minute phone call to discuss why I was interested, what position I would be interested in, and judge if I was a good fit for the company.

A few weeks later, I had a technical interview from home. This was a programming exercise and video chat. The problems were relatively easy to solve; it gave the team an idea of how I break down a problem.

Next was the life story interview. I scheduled a one-hour video chat with my recruiter to tell her my life story. It's an open-format interview, and I recommend planning your high-level points in advance. The recruiter may ask questions throughout, so have a plan to not get off track.

The final stage was a full-day, on-site interview. First, I met with the team lead to discuss past achievements and future goals. Then, a paired programming exercise, similar to the technical interview. Next was lunch (also part of the interview – how do you interact with the team?). Following that, a second paired programming exercise, and finally, a high-level architecture discussion.

The paired programming exercises were presented with no guidance but very high expectations. My advice is to over-engineer your solution, even though they are very simple problems.

In the end, I was not offered a position and was given relatively weak feedback as to why.

Shopify is looking for a very specific type of programmer, and I am perfectly fine not being it. In the end, the interview allowed me to appreciate my current role more than ever.

Why are you interested in Shopify?

We would like to report on data from our web stores. Please explain a solution design at a high level.