I applied online. I interviewed at Shopify (Toronto, ON) in Jun 2025
Interview
The process was as follows -
Recruiter screen
Personal story - share your journey and what are your motivations and goals
Pair programming - Super easy SQL based interview. The interviewers were very nice and helpful and it felt like mutual exercise.
Technical project - walkthrough of one of your technical projects. Again very nice interviewers and asked good questions.
Technical problem solving - Easy technical problem but the interviewer had set his mind on a particular solution and he wanted exactly that. My solution was pretty close and was solving the problem but he had set his expectations and wouldn't even hint on what he wanted until we ended the interview.
Overall the process was well organized and very nice and I received a call from the recruiter providing me with feedback and encouraging me to apply again. The feedback I received from the last interviewer was that my answer wasn't structured well. Anyway, I am grateful for the feedback and for meeting all the nice people. Spela is an amazing recruiter. I loved the transparency that she provided me.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All interviews were based on SQL. Prepare for basics, group by and window functions and you're good.
Just practice a couple of questions on Data Lemur and go through one funnel analysis. That should be more than enough .
First step was recruiter screen. After that it's a 1 hour SQL pairing exercise. For the SQL Screen, you are encouraged to use AI and it is done through Coderpad
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
First two questions are relatively straightforward with aggregations. The third question involves a cross join with a date spine. Basically you have some activities on certain dates, and need to fill in the activity count on missing dates with 0. I did not get a chance to look at the fourth question.
first round is recruiter, followed by a senior engineer, and then data engineer (pair programming round). after this is the classic shopify 'about you' round which is 1 hour long
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Shopify (Toronto, ON) in Oct 2025
Interview
The interview process was collaborative, well structured, and engaging throughout. The interviewers encouraged open discussion, asked thoughtful and practical questions, and fostered a supportive environment. They focused on real-world scenarios, problem-solving skills, and past experiences, making the conversation feel natural, professional, and insightful rather than purely evaluative.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Can you explain how you would design and optimize a SQL-based data pipeline to handle large-scale data processing and ensure data quality?
Data Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Shopify with 2.5 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 75% positive. To compare, the company-average is 45.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Data Engineer roles take an average of 14 days to get hired, when considering 4 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Shopify overall takes an average of 33 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Shopify as a Data Engineer according to 4 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 33%
One on one interview: 33%
Group panel interview: 17%
Presentation: 17%
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