Shopify Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 377 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Shopify.
Shopify
Software Engineer
Intern Average Positive experience Accept offer 5 rounds
Interview process
Take home Recruiter call Technical screen Onsite Background check Offer
Interview formats
Coding Technical Other
Started with an OA including 1 LC medium question in any language, 1 Ruby question, and 1 C++ question. Then there was an IQ/Cognitive assessment and a culture fit questionnaire. Next was a pair programming session with a simple design question, which was a great experience as the interviewer was very nice. This was followed by a very informal life story chat, also a great experience. Finally, a short informal talk with a senior engineer. Since I had a competing offer, they expedited the process very quickly and were very accommodating. Overall, a great experience.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- Practice 1D DP and stacks for the LeetCode medium questions.
- Describe your life story and how you arrived at this point.
Shopify
Software Engineer
Mid Average Negative experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Behavioral Coding Technical System Design
So Shopify has a kinda weird interview loop. The actual process isn't too strange, pretty similar to other SV companies in 2025, even though Shopify's Canadian and most Canadian tech companies don't do the SV thing. It's mostly standard but with some quirky names: a recruiter screen they call 'Life Story', a 'Pair Programming' coding exercise, a 'Technical Deep Dive' where you talk about a past project, and a 'Technical Problem Solving' system design session. What was a bit odd was using Criteria for an online IQ test ('Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test') and a personality test ('Employee Personality Profile'). The really weird part was when the recruiter sent this 'spicy' candidate guide and asked a bunch of questions to make sure I got their controversial opinions. It probably scares off some people, but I guess it makes sense for an e-commerce platform wanting to push entrepreneurship hard. You also get this CEO letter that's super exciting when you're young but has some concerning ideas you might miss because you're young. They really want you to know what you're signing up for, looking for a specific type of employee. They call it the Tobi Tornado for a reason. In the end, I didn't vibe with one interviewer and they passed.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- Can you demonstrate that you improve by at least 40% annually to meet the requirements of your current role? And can you ensure you and your teams uphold this level of performance?
- Create a Datasource class that mimics a Pandas dataframe, allowing for mapping and filtering operations before collecting the final output, like so: Datasource([1, 2, 3]).map(lambda x: x*2).filter(lambda x: x%2 == 0).collect().
- Could you describe a system you architected in your previous role, explaining the function of each component?
Shopify
Software Developer
Senior Average Negative experience No offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Technical screen Technical screen Technical screen
Interview formats
Technical Technical Technical
First there's this initial assessment that's like an IQ test, then a Life Story interview. If you pass that, you do a pair programming round. If you pass that, there's another pair programming exercise where they do a technical deep dive on a project you've worked on. I failed the Life Story interview, so I didn't get to the other stages. The Life Story interview really depends on if you and the recruiter vibe. My recruiter was nice, but we just didn't vibe. So even if you go through all your jobs and explain your decisions, there's no guarantee they'll move you forward. They say they're looking for people with a 'growth trajectory' in their career, but even though all my roles got more technical and demanding, it didn't seem to matter. They've been doing the Life Story interview for years, and I guess it works for them, but I'm not sure it's fair to be judged on if I vibe with a non-technical recruiter or my storytelling skills. With luck, you can make it to the next round, but I don't think you can really prepare for it. It's just their way to filter people out, regardless of experience. Good luck.
Confirmed questions3 questions
- Can you share your life story?
- How has your career shown a growth trajectory?
- Could you do a technical deep dive on one of your past projects?
Shopify Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Shopify interview reports.
“Create a Datasource class that mimics a Pandas dataframe, allowing for mapping and filtering operations before collecting the final output, like so: Datasource([1, 2, 3]).map(lambda x: x*2).filter(lambda x: x%2 == 0).collect().”
Read reports →“Write a function that takes a city inventory object and an order object, and returns a list of cities that can fulfill the order.”
Read reports →“Given a string that maps to a set of items, how would you determine the number of items?”
Read reports →“Given a text input and a button, how would you make a notification appear with the entered text when the button is pressed?”
Read reports →“Can you write a function that takes a list of state codes and their associated zip code prefixes, and determines if a given zip code is valid, returning the state code if it is?”
Read report →“Given commands for a robot to turn left, turn right, and move forward, can you simulate its movement on a 10x10 grid?”
Read report →“How would you sort a list of products based on price, and if prices are the same, use popularity to decide the order?”
Read report →“How would you design a command line program to control a robot's movement on a 2D plane?”
Read report →“Can you rank items based on popularity from an array of strings like "productName, PopularityScoreAsaStringOutOf100, and priceIntegerAsaString"? For items with the same popularity score, the one with the lower price should come first.”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 377 Shopify interview reports.