Shopify

Shopify Culture

Our culture is the product of each individual in our company - the sum of the beliefs and behaviours of each person here. It is defined by the people who work here, not by the stuff in our office nor by the perks.

What we Value:

1. Get sh*t done - This one’s pretty self-explanatory, but worth emphasizing. We value people who stay productive and get sh*t done. We trust you to identify what needs to be done and to make it happen. We value results.
2. Building for the long term - We’re building an enduring company - optimizing for long-term growth over short-term revenue. We’re not just focusing on accomplishing the next task or project, but also building it in such a way that we can easily take it to the next level. We think about the bigger picture.
3. Simplicity - Strive to find the simplest solution to all problems. This is fundamentally difficult because we work on solving complex issues. If there is no simple solution, reframe the issue until one emerges. Simple doesn’t mean simplistic: a good example would be how we approach writing. It can often take more work in editing to get to the shortest, most straightforward piece, but the end result is a message others can read quickly and understand immediately.
4. Act like an owner - We trust that you are the best at what you do. We want you to be entrepreneurial and own your domain. Be confident in your work , and make sure to communicate both your success and failures to your colleagues. We’re always learning from each other at this company. But acting like an owner extends beyond your own domain. Leave everything better than you found it. If it’s broken, either fix it yourself or find out who’s responsible for it. Magic happens when people care deeply about what they work on.
5. Thrive on change - We embrace change. We thrive on antifragility. We encourage risks and trials. Many companies avoid change at all costs. We do the opposite. Sometimes we even change things up as an intentional injection of chaos. We love experiments. Every good idea is worth a 30-day trial. If it works, great! If it doesn’t, we’ve learned something. We call this successful failure, and we celebrate it.     

Here are just a few stories of why people choose Shopify

Satish Kanwar, Director of Product - Toronto

“Shopify is a company for entrepreneurs making commerce better for other entrepreneurs. I love being here because at the heart of everything we do is always a relentless focus on our mission and our customers. I feel like I've learned more in my 3 years at Shopify than I have in my entire career, and I couldn't be prouder to work on this team.”

Therese Kirrane, Technical Writer Lead - Ottawa

“One thing that I love is the fact that everything is different every day. You know, you come in every morning and you might have plans but they change pretty quickly and it’s all a rush. In the longer term, the thing that I think I will look back on the most and love the most is the autonomy, the freedom to fail.I really don’t think you make anything original if you don’t have the confidence to fail or risk failure.”

Liz Mcdonald, Onboarding Trainer - Ottawa

“People see the flashiness of Shopify and say things like ‘Oh you work at a fun office and you have a keg, you must never get any work done.’ I’ve never worked with so many people that dedicate so much to their work every day. I think that’s the best kept secret.”

Moe Chaieb, Software Developer - Montreal

"Shopify's community allows you to grow, not only at what you do, but also as an individual. Here we care about allowing people to be their true selves, and we're constantly working on being more inclusive."

Lily Rogers, Head of Merchant Success - Waterloo

“I chose to join Shopify because I enjoy working on things that matter to a lot of people, and being excited to go to work every day is important to me. You get the sense that everyone here wants to contribute to Shopify in a big way and help grow this already incredible company.”

Gaurav Chande - Senior Software Developer, Ottawa

“The thing I love the most about working here is that it's literally possible to grow 10x in Shopify, viz. to mentally grow yourself in 1 year what you'd normally take 10 years to achieve in a regular company. Usually such claims are hogwash but I can tell you how exactly Shopify enables this: 1) Hierarchies aren't 'hard lines' in Shopify. If you've identified a problem that needs to be solved and you know how to solve it, irrespective of when you joined or which position you're in, no one will discourage you from going for it. You'll be amazed how open-minded even the exec team is to ideas and opinions from anyone. 2) You get to pick what you want to work on. If you don't feel passionate about an area you've been working on since a while, you will be encouraged to instead find something you'd love to help solve. 3) Departments are just labels. There's no such thing as "it's someone else's area" in Shopify. There's a problem in some other discipline that you know can be fixed by you? Go for it. Want to learn new skills from people in other departments? Book a lunch with them. These things and several others add up in the long term and you realize that it really is possible to grow in whichever direction, however much you want at Shopify. You set the bar for yourself.”

Emil Stolarsky, Production Engineer - Ottawa

“If you make mistakes, it’s not ‘You f**ked up’, it’s "Okay, what did you learn, how do we ensure it doesn’t happen again?’”

Zeina Naboulsi, Talent Acquisition Coordinator - Ottawa

“Some of the smartest, most talented people I’ve ever met work at Shopify. And many of them have shared that their successes are mainly attributed to their ability to ‘fail forward.’ It’s an interesting concept to wrap your brain around, but once you do, it’s contagious.”

Lucas Santo, Videographer

“I’ve never been in a workplace where everyone is so into their work, yet on a large scale I’ve never met a single assh*le - that’s pretty good.”

Every few months, we break from ‘business as usual’ to immerse ourselves in Hack Days. All projects are fair game, as long as the end goal is to add value to Shopify. There’s no limit to the creativity or scope of projects and only one rule: projects ‘ship’ when the time is up. We need all the ideas. The big, small, and differently shaped ones. Ideas can come from new recruits to old timers, in every area of the company. Every individual here provides a unique context and this is powerful.

Hack Days are a time to take a creative break from regular duties and to act on a pent up idea. To fail in a safe space, and learn from the experience. And to work with people outside of your usual circle (we have a lot of talented people who would love to teach you some new tricks).

"My favourite part of Hack Days is the opportunity to collaborate openly with people from all different parts of the company. I worked with two Toronto designers on a project that I've been hoping to do for some time and having access to all that talent was just awesome! I learned to code which was awesome and something I've wanted to do for a long time.  I had no idea what kind of talent pool we had here. People were all so helpful and supportive as well as determined on an end goal."

Julia Bowen, Sales Scientist, Waterloo Office

“The best Hack Days I had was when we worked on building gift cards for our merchants to sell to their customers. We pulled together a team of people with various skills - design, front-end, and back-end development, and we went to work. To be fair we had explored the idea in advance but we used Hack Days to focus on building a solution; we carved out a path and created a cool demo and it was awesome. While we did come away with a completed product, this Hack Days project was about exploration, not about a ‘good job’. What Hack Days created was a clear project and a carved path for the team to build on, which they did and finished in the following three months. “

John Duff, Director of Engineering, Ottawa Office