Shopify

I've been here almost a year as a developer. I personally think it's the most exciting place to work in Canada and love working here. Here's why:

Meaningful work making an impact on users. The company has a clear goal, and you're contributing significantly. You get to make improvements and provide value to users' lives, which is very rewarding.

I've been encouraged to grow in terms of skills. I've learned Ruby on Rails, which I didn't know at all before. I've given a talk in front of a large group and wrote a blog post, neither of which I've ever done before and never imagined I would. This place can really encourage growth and improvement. Even though I'm a front-end developer, there have been no issues with me doing some back-end work or helping on other projects. It's all on GitHub and open to pull requests (feels like open source within the company).

With thousands of smart and talented people in a culture where they can do amazing things and innovate, amazing products are created. The people here are very talented and helpful. Everyone supports and roots for each other. On Slack, we celebrate each other's accomplishments. Most of the people here could work anywhere. Many come from startups in Toronto or moved from different parts of the world to work here.

There are many opportunities to get to know others and work with them, for example, Fancy Friday lunches once a month where you go out to lunch with others (paid for by Shopify). Or a system that randomly matches you with others for lunch. Hack Days is another great chance to work with people you don't normally work with.

Even though it's a big company, there is little bureaucracy. There is tons of internal communication where everyone shares what they're doing, and everyone can ask any question and get an answer quickly. We're constantly doing things and telling people so that people are inspired and get feedback or help if needed.

Compensation is high with public stock, something many other Canadian tech companies can't offer.

Great offices, food is usually good, house-cleaning perk. Sometimes I come into work, and there's someone cooking fresh eggs for you. Book bars where you can borrow some interesting books. Internal podcasts!

Personally, I've never had to work evenings or weekends. Work from home and hours flexibility (can avoid rush hour on the subway).

Tooling is great: Github, Slack, with many integrations and reasonable processes. Because there are several cities, there are many cross-location meetings, but with Google Hangouts and livestream infrastructure, it's painless.

Really amazing employee conferences/events like Summit, opportunity to travel to other offices.

Even though there's free beer/wine/drinks, it's not a very drink-heavy culture. There's no obligation to stay late for things like hack days, so I find it very inclusive for those in different life situations. People may have a beer or glass of wine during town-hall meetings, but I haven't seen it ever go too far.

The employee population is diverse by gender, race, age, and life situation, although it may skew younger than many larger corporations. Many women in leadership roles.

As with other tech companies, I love that we can wear anything to work (shorts, hoodies, t-shirts).

You're always encouraged to give your honest opinion (in a respectful way), even if it challenges others.

If you're a developer, how cool is it that the CEO wrote the original code for this big Rails app that tons of people run their businesses on?

Growth rate is extremely high. After a few months, many on your team are newer than you. This is both exciting and has challenges.

Each team or group can be different or have different processes, so my perspective might not be representative of all experiences working here. I've been here about 1 year and many are newer than me.

There's a good onboarding process, but I personally found Ruby on Rails to have a bit of a steep learning curve, coming from a JS background. Having said that, there is a lot of support, and I've been able to learn it and contribute.

There are 3 separate buildings in Toronto. The buildings are all nice, but one of them is a bit of a walk away from the others, so you may not see people from there as often.

With multiple cities (Ottawa, Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal, SF), groups can feel fractured, but travel, Slack, and remote meetings can mitigate this.

Those coming from more traditional companies might experience some culture shock by how casual and laid back it is here, but I think it's pretty standard for a tech and Silicon Valley-style company. I've always worked in tech (in Canada), so things like sandals at work or beer at work are not shocking for me personally.

There is a lot of autonomy and freedom, which can be good for some but an adjustment for others. Sometimes you have to find your own work and ways to contribute.

You've built something special here. Thanks!