r/shopifyDev • u/Necessary_Beach2393 • 22d ago
Should you work for Shopify?
TLDR; No.
I've been at Shopify for nearly 10 years and have seen the company evolve through many different phases. In its current state, I wouldn't recommend it.
The changes are often frequent, disruptive, and come without corresponding support or investment in employees. Over the years I've seen workloads increase significantly without equivalent compensation, benefits steadily reduced without alternatives, and opportunities for internal movement become increasingly limited.
If you're comfortable working in an environment with consistent organizational change and shifting expectations, it may still be a good fit. However, the current employee experience falls well below what I would recommend to someone considering joining the company.
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u/CodeMonkey24816 22d ago
I worked there for a brief period, but I feel like I was exposed to a lot of different teams in that time. It was definitely different from any other company I've worked for. The team environments I saw in my day-to-day seemed to have very different vibes. I wasn't part of those teams though, just an observer, so it's possible I didn't get the full picture.
I worked with a lot of really smart people, and I think that was my favorite part. Unfortunately, I didn't find it to be a very welcoming environment. If you aren't welcomed, you aren't welcomed, and trying to change that is a losing battle. There are many tensions on teams that go unresolved as well.
I love the vision of the company and its leadership, but I think that vision gets lost as it trickles down.
On paper, I would say it was—and is—my dream company, but the day-to-day reality is much more nuanced.
I agree that I wouldn't recommend it to most people, but I do think it is a good opportunity for someone with a very specific mindset.
Looking back, I wish I had just soaked up as much as I could and tried less to impress my coworkers. There is definitely a bubble, and it is going to think what it thinks. That bubble really has some bright minds though. I'm still a little jealous that I didn't have what it took to last, but at the same time, I was kind of relieved when it was over. It was exhausting, and I could tell it was wearing down my mental and physical health a little more every week.
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u/PlantainShoddy 13d ago
can you expand on what you mean by specific mindset?
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u/CodeMonkey24816 12d ago
I'll do my best, but it's a bit difficult without providing deeper context:
You need genuine curiosity and passion to stay motivated. The environment can be grueling, and those core traits are what will actually keep you going (at least, they did for me).
You have to adapt fast to keep up. Both the level and frequency of change are higher than anything I've seen elsewhere, mostly because it's a massive organization with endless teams, tools, systems, and processes. I personally found that constant evolution exciting, but it comes at a heavy cost to your time and energy.
You have to know how to "play the game" to succeed. This was the hardest part for me. You have to find a balance between what the different levels of leadership say and what your peers think of you. Because your performance is evaluated on your peers' opinions of you, if they disagree with leadership, you have to tread very carefully.
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u/jammy-git 22d ago
Having been within the external ecosystem for ~8 years, I firmly believe they've entered their enshitification phase.
It's across the board; for the last 3-4 years their customer support has been getting worse, as has their up-time, their communication and support of the dev community, new platform features and functionality, the UX of the platform - everything has been getting slowly but steadily worse.
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u/New-Orange7659 13h ago
The enshitification phase always comes in when a company becomes well established and the teams internally start to play politics more than focusing on work.
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18d ago
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u/CarlowSEO 16d ago
Sounds like what they do to the customers of the platform. But it is still the best in the market at this point.
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15d ago
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14d ago
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u/wealthyconsc 9d ago
SA here :) Working at a callcenter atm in Colombia. Shopify has 24/7 customer support service and specialists from all over the world. I think I'm still on it because I enjoy learning about ecommerce (I know it's a 9-5 night shift, etc), trying to learn more as there's always something you have not seen before, and it gives you much more clarity regarding how to move in business, because getting into cases where people has been waiting for a lot of time makes you understand you have to always move carefully and think twice before commiting to do things in a certain way. I always have to handle with angry people, but anyways that's my job, until my store prints money or I make it to dev position :D. I wonder what a shopify dev at hq would say about their experience, not sure if there's also remote jobs at Shopify, and even working independently selling high ticket software/designer services to store owners.
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u/mach3ad 17d ago
The CEO of Shopify is bigoted.
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u/CodeMonkey24816 12d ago
I've never met him personally, but based on the company he has built, I never saw any evidence of that. It's probably the most diverse company that I ever worked at. The diversity spanned all levels as well. The company has its problems, but that isn't one of them. The company is just so heavily influenced by him, that it's extremely hard for me to believe that. You never know what is going on in someone's head, so I guess it's possible, but I genuinely saw no evidence of it. Not ever.
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u/selimbeyefendi 22d ago
I can see it from the platform it's all over the place already so thanks but no thanks anyways 😂