A/B testing setup and how to handle p hacking and peeking at results came up and I wasn't expecting that at all. First technical round was statistics and probability, questions about distributions and how you'd design an experiment with finite sample size constraints. Second round was a machine learning system design question about building a merchant recommendation engine at Shopify scale. Also a values interview that felt more human than most. Long process overall but the interviewers were smart and treated it like a real technical conversation rather than a gatekeeping exercise
Questions Asked
1.“Given a model with high accuracy but poor recall on the minority class, what would you do?”
UX Designer
Toronto, ON
Summer 2026Accepted
University of Waterloo · Computer Science
4th year · 3.3-3.6 GPA · 3 past internships
Hard Interview
Multiple roundsBehavioralVirtual
Portfolio review first where they went through three of my case studies in detail, pushing on why I made specific decisions at each interaction point. Then a design challenge about improving onboarding for new Shopify merchants, 45 minutes to sketch out a user flow and present it. The interviewer pushed on the reasoning behind every design decision, intense but good practice. Then a values interview which felt like a genuine conversation about what you care about and how you work, not a box checking exercise. The whole thing was about 3 hours across two sessions. Shopify design interviews are different from what I'd done elsewhere
Questions Asked
1.“How do you handle a situation where the client wants something that is genuinely bad UX”
Software Developer
Toronto, ON
Summer 2025Declined Offer
University of Waterloo · Computer Science
4th year · 3.7+ GPA · 3 past internships
Average Interview
Conversational
80 min HackerRank with 2 programming problems and MCQs on data structures, algorithms, OS and networking. OS questions covered process scheduling and memory management, pretty niche second year stuff
Questions Asked
1.“Find the longest increasing subsequence in an array”
2.“Implement a min-stack that retrieves the minimum element in O(1)”
Data Scientist
Toronto, ON
Winter 2025No Offer
University of Toronto · Computer Science
2nd year · 2.9-3.2 GPA · 0 past internships
Average Interview
TechnicalMultiple roundsBehavioral
Online assessment first with situational judgment and pattern recognition and logical reasoning stuff. If you pass that you get a 1 on 1 interview with 4 behavioral and 2 situational questions. Then the panel, 6-7 behavioral questions in one hour using the CAR format not STAR. A lot of questions one after another in a short window
Questions Asked
1.“What excites you most about the opportunity at Shopify?”
2.“What's your approach to feature selection for a high-dimensional dataset?”
Software Developer
Ottawa, ON
Summer 2026Accepted
Carleton University · Computer Science
2nd year · 3.3-3.6 GPA · 1 past internship
Easy Interview
Conversational
Design a feature for the Shopify merchant dashboard and root cause a metrics problem, also some systems design questions which apparently Shopify dev interviews are way more product focused than other companies
Questions Asked
1.“Generate all valid combinations of n pairs of parentheses”
UX Designer
Toronto, ON
Winter 2026Pending Outcome
York University · Computer Science
3rd year · 2.9-3.2 GPA · 1 past internship
Easy Interview
BehavioralConversational
Portfolio review where we did a collaborative problem solving duet thing with a designer, that was fun then the life story interview which is them asking about your life and how you got to where you are
Questions Asked
1.“Tell me about a time a user surprised you with how they interacted with a product”
2.“Describe a time you had to defend a design decision under significant pressure”
UI/UX Designer
Fall 2026No Offer
University of Waterloo · Computer Science
4th year · 3.3-3.6 GPA · 2 past internships
BehavioralTechnicalSlow process
Process took 3 weeks they were slow to schedule next rounds but the people I met with were all friendly. Questions like walk me through this block of JavaScript and CSS nothing I haven't seen before but be careful about very specific syntax
Machine Learning Engineer
Summer 2026No Offer
University of Toronto · Business and Computer Science
4th year · 3.3-3.6 GPA · 2 past internships
Slow processBehavioralMultiple rounds
Was expecting heavy technicals going into the first round but really just SQL queries and theory about how you would go about implementing some APIs for financial data was surprised there was no live coding
Software Engineer
Summer 2026Accepted
Queen's University · Commerce
5th year · 1 past internship
Multiple roundsTechnicalStressful
To write a "valid" experience for Shopify on your resume, it needs to reflect their unique engineering culture—specifically their "crafter" mindset, their focus on high-scale commerce, and their specific 2026 tech stack (which heavily emphasizes Ruby on Rails, React, and GraphQL)
Intern
Summer 2026Pending Outcome
Acadia University · Accounting
Alumni · 0 past internships
Unexpected QuestionsPoor Communication
interview was hard, questions were annoying , and kepy interupting
Software Development Engineer
Summer 2026Accepted
tsinghua · Computer Science
1st year · 3.7+ GPA · 0 past internships
TechnicalFast process
Low level design, pretty easy. search lld questions on youtube