Shopify

There are many lovely and intelligent people here.

At times, I really appreciated the feedback I got from colleagues. It made me better.

Some managers were very good about taking care of employees and covering them. I wish I would've kept the amazing manager I had.

The codebase is really poorly maintained and often lacks testing. Entire classes are untested. You will not be rewarded for trying to fix it. Instead, you'll be dealing with constantly changing requirements while also being nitpicked about everything.

Nitpicking. While I value Shopify's feedback culture, it becomes impossible to keep up with all the nits. Moreover, managers are unwilling to help someone grow and address the feedback. They will write something down and create a tally next to the feedback for each time you mess up. Eventually, the feedback becomes vague and contradictory.

The culture is cutthroat. If something goes wrong, rather than reflect on their overly bureaucratic and confusing processes, they'll lay the blame on an individual. Nothing improves, and working here becomes a game of hot potato where you avoid anything that can put you in the crosshairs.

Constant attrition and stack ranking. A quarter of my team was cut within the first few months of my being here. Almost no one who was cut deserved it; they each brought significant value to the team. Everyone lives under the fear of a sudden termination, which they call an "exit."

"Thrive on change" really isn't a value. It's an excuse management uses for their rapid mood shifts. I've often held meetings and ironed out how we'd approach a problem. Everyone would agree, but then wait until the project was close to shipping to change their minds. They won't take responsibility. They blame someone for everything and sacrifice that employee to the KPI gods. Public shaming is common here, as is dogpiling. They don't hold retros; they blame someone and wait for that person to quit or be fired.

The company is unprofessional. They seem unable to iron out simple HR processes. They also force you to take a certain portion of your salary in RSUs to start and will not negotiate. They also provided incorrect information when I started about when my RSUs would be available to sell.

AI as part of your mastery review. I got a bad review on this section, and my manager said, "Everyone got a bad review on that." I'd argue that this means it's not a real measure of performance. Stop it. Get some help.

You have kind and talented people. If you treat them well and give them psychological safety, you'll get a lot more out of them than with the current system of fear.

But as I stated above, I'm sure Shopify will not reflect on anything they do. They are very certain they are correct about everything.