Shopify Interview Guide

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Shopify Interview Guide

Company Overview: Shopify is a leading e-commerce platform empowering merchants to start, grow, and manage online businesses. Known for merchant-first approach and developer-friendly tools.

Interview Process

Timeline: 3-4 weeks

  1. Recruiter Screen (30 min)
  2. Technical Screen (60 min) – Coding problem, some e-commerce discussion
  3. Onsite (4 rounds, ~4 hours)
    • 2 coding rounds (60 min each)
    • 1 system design OR product thinking (60 min)
    • 1 behavioral/craft (45 min)

Question Difficulty

  • Coding: Medium (70%), Easy-Medium (20%), Hard (10%)
  • Practical: E-commerce focused, real-world scenarios
  • Languages: Ruby on Rails experience helpful but not required

Common Questions

Coding:

  • Design shopping cart system
  • Implement discount code validator
  • Calculate shipping costs
  • Design inventory management system
  • Implement product search with filters
  • Process payment transactions

System Design:

  • Design e-commerce platform
  • Design checkout system
  • Design product recommendation engine
  • Design analytics dashboard for merchants
  • Handle Black Friday scale (millions of orders)

Preparation

  • Technical: 6-8 weeks
  • LeetCode: 60-80 problems (Medium focus)
  • Topics: Hash maps, trees, queues, caching
  • E-commerce: Understand payment flows, inventory, shipping
  • Product: Set up a Shopify store (free trial)

Salary (Ottawa, Toronto, Remote)

  • Developer: $110-150K CAD, $140-190K total
  • Senior: $150-200K CAD, $200-300K total
  • Staff: $200-260K CAD, $320-480K total

US offices (SF): Add 30-50% to above figures

Culture

  • Merchant-first: Always think about merchant success
  • Craft: Quality code and products valued
  • Remote-first: Strong distributed team culture
  • Autonomy: Teams own products end-to-end
  • Growth: Rapid company growth, lots of opportunity

Interview Tips

  • ✓ Understand e-commerce deeply (payments, shipping, inventory)
  • ✓ Show merchant empathy
  • ✓ Discuss scalability (Black Friday/Cyber Monday)
  • ✓ Emphasize clean, maintainable code
  • ✓ Be enthusiastic about empowering entrepreneurs

Difficulty: 3/5 | Best for: Engineers interested in e-commerce, supporting small businesses, and distributed teams.

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