[thegginthesky]

I'll tell you a personal anecdote about Shopify and why I dislike the company.

Back in 2019, I was contacted by Shopify for a job opportunity. After acing multiple remote interviews, their recruiter couldn't contain their excitement. They promised me an onsite interview to simply meet the team and potentially secure an offer.

Imagine my surprise when, after enduring a 15-hour economy class flight with barely any time to recover, I received a call from the recruiter. They casually informed me that the team had decided to put me through five grueling back-to-back interviews, including a whiteboard session and a pair programming assignment. Despite my lack of a laptop, they assured me one would be provided.

What followed was an unmitigated disaster. The first interview bombarded me with ecommerce questions, completely unrelated to my field of expertise. The pair programming session was a nightmare, as I was handed a barely functional laptop that delayed the start by 20 minutes, and then given just 30 minutes to complete the task without any assistance.

Bear in mind, I was already physically and mentally drained from the arduous journey.

While the remaining interviews were passable, they were nothing to brag about. After being sent home with the promise of a call, I received a cold rejection a week later, citing a lack of experience based on the onsite interviews.

Looking back, I'm grateful I didn't sacrifice everything for a company with a track record of questionable practices and frequent layoffs.

[xtracto]

People interviewing have to stand for themselves more. Several years ago, I was living in Germany looking to go back home later that year. I got into the interview process for a nice Silicon Valley startup (called Ooyala). After 3 phone interviews (2 technical) the recruiter was super excited and told me they would fly me from Germany to their offices.. A 10 hour flight.

I respectfully declined, telling her that because I was going to do the same long trip about 2 months later, I didn't want to fly. I told her that I would understand if they decided to pass, and no hard feelings.

Instead, she got one of the founders to interview me (Bel!!) And after that they decided to give me an offer. Everything resulted great for all of us, and I had a job waiting for me later that year.

I understand we may be desperate when looking for a job. But trust me that hiring managers are also generally in a hurry to fill positions. I know this bc I've hired plenty of people (both tech, HR, and g&a) in my career.

[tsak]

Fully agree with that. I had a similar experience when I was asked to complete yet another take home exercise and I simply told them to look at the last two I had done (for other companies). After a first bit of reluctance by the company's recruiter, they budged and accepted.

When hiring people, I ended up making similar concessions for the right candidate.

[Shindi]

> They promised me an onsite interview to simply meet the team and potentially secure an offer.

Was that your first tech onsite? The onsite is an interview you have to pass, you're not guaranteed an offer. Also why did you not bring your laptop to your tech interview lol

Honestly, sucks to fly out far and get rejected but that's part of the process my guy. Most onsites are 5 back to back interviews.

[huehehue]

Fwiw, every time I "meet the team after interviewing", it literally is just to meet the team. If there were any technical exercises involved, I'd expect an agenda or some kind of heads up. And it makes sense to wait for the technical evaluation before scheduling this sort of meeting, imo.

For bigger orgs, this is a chance to sanity check team fit and potentially re-route if longer-term interests align better with some other team. For startups, it can be more of a vibe check.

[thegginthesky]

Not my first on site either, but normally I'd just need to go through a phone screen and a tech test to secure an onsite, not many hours of interviewing. Plus, I just listened to what the recruiter told me through the phone and confirmed through the email.

Why would I think I'd need to go over another round of interviews after spending over 4 hours interviewing remotely, plus interviewing with engineers, to do it all over again?

[simoncion]

> ...why did you not bring your laptop to your tech interview lol

I have several reasons for not bringing my personal hardware to a corporate interview, and a couple about the specific situation as described:

* I wouldn't travel with my laptop to an on-site that was described as a meet-and-greet.

* The recruiter promised suitable hardware would be available at the surprise technical on-site interview: "Despite my lack of a laptop, they assured me one would be provided."

* For many companies processing corporate data on personal, not-managed-by-the-business hardware is a firing offense.

* Grabassery happens, but if it's clear that my potential employer is an established company that is unable to plan ahead far enough to ensure that the interview has the hardware and personnel required for the interview, that's a _huge_ red flag for me... and one that's good to get out of the way early.

[comte7092]

> Also why did you not bring your laptop to your tech interview lol

I’m not really “in tech” but this sounds like some bullshit for me. What if you don’t have a personal laptop? All I’ve got is a desktop machine, because my personal devices aren't for work.

> Most onsites are 5 back to back interviews.

What an absurd practice.

[s__s]

> What an absurd practice.

Indeed. If it takes 5 interviews after 4 hours of remote interviewing your hiring process is completely broken. Giant red flag.

[sodapopcan]

> Most onsites are 5 back to back interviews.

After after going through a whole crapload of interviews, "most" onsites definitely are not 5 hours. They certainly are a thing. Some are even longer. But out of around 25 interviews, only three places requested that much time (I declined two of them).

[oblio]

I'm sorry to tell you this, but either your perception was wrong or your recruiter made a mistake.

Remote interviews are generally phone screens. Aka just weeding out candidates.

On site interviews are the real killer.

[tshaddox]

In hindsight it’s easy to blame that person for not automatically expecting a grueling day of interviews or at least asking for details about what to expect.

But it’s easy for me to believe that the recruiter deliberately mislead the candidate about the on-site. I have experienced on-sites that were indeed more about meeting the team, having more casual technical discussions and being judged for “culture fit” (which has its own problems, but that’s another discussion).

It’s not unreasonable to take the recruiter at their word and be upset about the unexpected challenge, especially after a rough travel itinerary.

[kabouseng]

Well then Shopify should have better communicated and be better prepared, plus give the candidate enough time to recover from the flight. Bad form from Shopify if true...

[PKop]

They probably should do this, but if they have enough applicants for the job, this sort of "difficulty" itself is probably a useful filter to weed out those who can't put up with the pain.

That it is unpleasant for the potential hire doesn't really say much about the interests of Shopify. For senior engineers this probably is a bad strategy, but maybe not for entry-level or intermediate engineer who they will push around for a few years. Forcing you to jump through hoops may actually get them exactly the kind of employee they want.

[marcosdumay]

> weed out those who can't put up with the pain

If that's a useful thing for your software development company to do, it is a bad place to work and it should work to improve it.

[hnlmorg]

It depends on the company and/or hiring manager.

The role I’m currently hiring for, the face to face literally is just a meet and greet. All the technical stuff will be done remotely.

Also I wouldnt be surprised if the recruiter lied. I’ve had so many negative experiences with recruiters over the years that I’ve learned to trust very few and those who I do trust I now work exclusively with.

[vsareto]

Meanwhile, just play Starcraft 2 to get an internship: https://i.redd.it/amk31bewfxt31.jpg

[aeze]

And play it at a professional level for years.

[teg4n_]

What does playing a video game good have to do with Software Engineering?

[waboremo]

Competitive esports is a bit different from mindlessly playing video games, it has far more to do with consistency, reliability, and marketing. Additionally, the person was being quite dismissive, this dude was already studying CS at a university.

[smilebot]

“Just” is an understatement.

[UseStrict]

I had almost an identical experience, except I was local to Ottawa at the time. Literally a full day of back-to-back interviews. They asked which languages and technologies I was comfortable with, and then gave me a pair programming session with someone who didn't even speak to me, in a programming language I wasn't comfortable in, leading me to have to look up a lot of syntax. Radio silence for a week, then I called the original recruiter and they just basically said "no."

[sodapopcan]

I would so love to name names of companies who told me that I was going to do a "pair programming" exercise and the interviewer didn't even speak to me. Of course I won't, but clearly people don't know what pairing means.

One of them was a zoom call THAT I WAS ON BY MYSELF AND BEING RECORDED. I was told it was going to be a three hour pairing exercise and _after the interview started_ dude told me he would be available for questions but ultimately wouldn't be involved. I'm still angry at myself for agreeing to go through with that.

[darth_avocado]

Shopify is notorious in wasting your time. They have a “life journey” interview where you talk about your life’s journey and experiences. A few months ago I spent hours of my time on interviews that I performed well in, only to be told the team is “moving in a different direction”. Looks like I dodged a bullet there.

[amrocha]

Clearly didn't perform as well as you thought if they passed on you

[darth_avocado]

Not quite. In this market, you can crush it and still not get the job. One thing I can say for sure, I performed way better than was required for the position. Anyway, ended up somewhere way better, so worked out in the end.

[amrocha]

Sounds like you didn't meet their bar. I'm happy you're somewhere you like, and interviews are somewhat arbitrary so you're not gonna pass them all. It still doesn't reflect well on you to take that stance though.

[finikytou]

LOL. WHAT BAR? the bar where a corporate suit in polos can judge your life story and compare it to his where he did not just travel to all those exotic destinations for fun but to understand the culture of the people living in bali, mexico, europe? this is an ecommerce platform. hell you can do it in php on a 1999 laptop. nothing fancy here man they not sending space shuttles to mars

[amrocha]

The engineers are the ones setting the bar, the life story is to avoid assholes. Clearly he got past that, so congrats on not being an asshole, but the engineers weren't impressed enough.

There's a reason Shopify on your resume opens a lot of doors. They don't compromise on engineering.

[flappyeagle]

Shopify leadership drank their own kool aid and so did many of its employees. I’ve been a constructor to them before and it was not a good experience.

[euix]

I had experience with Shopify a few years back - around the start of the pandemic in 2020, not quite so disastrous as it didn't go that far but basically after an initial recruiter phone screen I had a technical interview with one of their Data Scientists, the questions were very easy and I got the impression I was significantly more experienced than their interviewer.

After that I had a second phone screen with the same recruiter - which I suppose was some sort of behavioral interview? I failed because I got the rejection after that with no feedback. Looking back, I got the impression they already had someone in mind but needed to tick some boxes or something - like show they interviewed multiple people for the role.

Knowing a few people that do work at Shopify I get the impression they are very particular about their cultural fit so maybe that was it.

[rglover]

> a whiteboard session

Whenever I hear this, I immediately think "dick measuring contest" and take the team far less seriously. A lot of these companies think they're training astronauts for the dregs of space when really they're just trying to build efficient database apps.

[amanj41]

That is absolutely disgraceful. I have been furious after much smaller things like being told an interview will be system design when it was actually a LeetCode style interview. Can't imagine how that must have felt.