Shopify

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

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 misled.

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 to during the sales process. You are thrown into the thick of it with little to no training. I have been yelled at and abused by 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 its employees Fridays off, but what they don't tell you is that you will end up working those days anyway 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 to. We were never told that we'd have to answer complex theme questions or help troubleshoot APIs. 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. For example, 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.

Please figure out a better business model for your merchants. There's no reason why they should have a customer support line and a dedicated person to be their customer support/punching bag as well.

If you're going to implement Fridays off, make it fair for everyone. Merchant-facing teams still feel the need to work on Friday because their merchants expect it from them. Shopify hasn't set the boundary. There has not been one R&R Friday where I haven't had to respond to a merchant.

Also, find a way for people to take vacations without having to worry about an influx of requests when they come back.