I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Shopify (London, England) in Jan 2025
Interview
Initial Assessment which resembles an IQ test followed by a Life Story interview. Should you succeed there’s a pair programming round after, and finally if you pass that, another pair programming exercise with a technical deep dive of a project you’ve worked on.
I failed the Life Story interview, so never got to see the other stages.
The Life Story interview is quite reliant on if you vibe with the recruiter or not. My recruiter was quite polite and seemed like a nice guy overall, but we didn’t vibe at all. So, even if you go through all the jobs you’ve had in detail, and explain why you took the decisions you took, there’s still no guarantee they’ll progress you to the next round. They speak of seeking people that have followed a “growth trajectory” in their career. Every role I’ve had has required me to become more technical, pick up new skills and in general has been a lot more demanding than the previous one. Didn’t seem to make any difference.
Apparently Shopify seem to have been doing the Life Story interview for years. If it works for them fair enough, just not sure I agree that it’s fair to be judged based on if I vibe with a randomly allocated non-technical recruiter or if my storytelling skills are top notch or not.
With luck on one’s side (getting a recruiter who you vibe with) you can make it through to the next round is how I see it. But not sure there’s a way to “prepare” for this stage of the interview process. It’s just a way to organically filter out the people they don’t deem fit irrespective of years of experience.
May the force be with you all.
I passed LRU cache coding in first interview
I had four more interview.
1. pair coding again LRU cache I did what I did in previous one
2. system design I desinged staff level architectire
3. Technical deep dive I explained my current technical structure
4. life story he asked what we talked first screening
I got rejected .
Important part All I had interview was native speaker. None has accent.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Library Rare Books
Goals
Design the core systems to drive check-in and check-out flows. It should involve a web app (schema/APIs), a job system, and a file storage system.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Shopify in Apr 2026
Interview
I recently completed the interview process at Shopify, which spanned about three weeks. The stages included an initial online cognitive assessment and a pair programming round, followed by a virtual onsite featuring a second pair programming session, a technical deep dive, system design, and a "life story" interview.
Overall, it was an excellent experience. The interviewers were professional and highly engaged throughout. I found the technical problems to be very practical, and notably, the use of AI coding tools was encouraged during the pairing sessions. While the system design requirements were quite lengthy, the complexity was manageable as long as you remain calm, think out loud, and clarify expectations early on.
Had an initial recruiter call, very friendly. Then had a life story interview, very friendly casual conversation as well speaking about past work experiences and how it led to where I am. Was scheduled for a 75 mins coding round, but I dropped since I landed another offer
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
More about why are you interested in Shopify and how I work
Senior Software Developer applicants have rated the interview process at Shopify with 2.6 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 35% positive. To compare, the company-average is 45.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Senior Software Developer roles take an average of 31 days to get hired, when considering 51 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 Senior Software Developer according to 51 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 31%
One on one interview: 24%
Skills test: 17%
Presentation: 11%
Background check: 6%
Personality test: 6%
IQ intelligence test: 4%
Other: 1%
Drug test: 1%
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