Shopify has a rather strange interview loop. It's not the process itself that is that weird.

The process is similar to most other Silicon Valley companies in 2025. It's worth noting that Shopify is a Canadian company, and most Canadian tech companies do not use a SV interview style. However, the process is mostly standard, albeit with quirky names:

• Recruiter screen (Life Story)
• Coding exercise (Pair Programming)
• Interview describing a past project (Technical Deep Dive)
• Systems design session (Technical Problem Solving)

It was a little strange that they used Criteria to administer an online IQ test (Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test) and a personality test (Employee Personality Profile).

The truly strange part began when the recruiter started off our conversation by sending a candidate guide they described as "spicy." They then asked a lot of questions to ensure I understood Shopify's controversial opinions.

On one hand, I'm sure this approach scares away candidates. But on the other hand, as Shopify is an e-commerce platform, their stance of encouraging entrepreneurship at all costs makes sense.

You will also get to read a CEO letter that is super exciting when you're 25, but contains some worrying ideas that you won't notice because you're 25. Shopify genuinely wants you to understand what you're signing up for, as they only want a certain kind of employee. There is a reason they call it the Tobi Tornado.

In the end, I didn't click with one of the interviewers, and they chose to pass.

Can you show up at least 40% better every year to qualify for your current job? Can you hold yourself and your teams to this standard?

Implement a Datasource class that looks like a Pandas DataFrame. You should be able to map and filter over it, before collecting the results:

Datasource([1, 2, 3]).map(lambda x: x*2).filter(lambda x: x%2 == 0).collect()

Walk me through a system that you designed at your last job. How does every part work?

Design a system for a rare book library to keep track of the condition of their books using a book scanner to photograph the state of each returned book.