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> Shopify has a Life Story round. Due to developers' insistence on rebranding everything, this is just a cutesy title for a work history interview. When I inte

> Shopify has a Life Story round. Due to developers' insistence on rebranding everything, this is just a cutesy title for a work history interview. When I interviewed at Shopify, naïve as I was (or perhaps just overly-literal, as engineers are wont to be), I thought they actually wanted my life-story in the "Life Story" interview. I told of how I have a non-traditional background for CS, how I had children early and how it influenced my life, how I moved my family to a farm as a work-trade after being laid off from my first full time programming job. The interviewer (recruiter I think) kept steering thus: "oh wow! So then after that, what was your next job?" and "interesting! And what kind of programming languages did you use at that job?" It took me a minute to realize she just wanted me to recite my CV. I found the Shopify folks to be very cordial and the interview was a positive experience overall even though it did not result in an offer. This was about 5 years ago.

MattGaiser 5y ago
I made the same mistake in the Life Story interview. I thought it was about why I became a dev. Except I only realized that about 15 minutes in.
- ma2rten 5y ago
  Sounds like it's ripe for (creating the perception of) discrimination.
  - evilduck 5y ago
    The intent could very well be to get people to volunteer information you otherwise can’t directly ask. “Life story” is such an odd way to label it if they just want to know your career path to date.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- Nullinker 5y ago
  Communication goes both ways. It is a very reasonable assumption that a life story is about your whole life, not just your education and professional career. The recruiters should explain what they mean if they are redefining terms, especially since people regularly interpret it differently.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    This is what Shopify has to say about the Life Story: > For the Life Story, you can expect an informal 60-minute conversation via video with a Recruiter from our team. Interviews at Shopify are two-sided conversations. We are genuinely interested in getting to know you and we want you to get to know us, too. It seemed so out of the blue to be asked the typical questions contract recruiters ask about programming languages and years of experience in those languages.
    - sequoia 5y ago
      Yeah this sort of language was what threw me off. It explicitly states that they want to "get to know you" in a way that, presumably, extends beyond "how many years JavaScript experience." I actually remember thinking "perhaps figuring out that the question they asked is not the question they actually want answered is the test. Figuring out that a stakeholder wants something very different than what they initially ask for is a very important skill for developers." If so, good on shopify recruiters! They're playing 3D chess.
- nkrisc 5y ago
  The worst thing about this (apart from the obviously misleading name) is if you correctly interpret it, it implies your work is your life.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    That would scare me at any other company, but Shopify has an excellent reputation for WLB, so at least at the time that thought did not occur.
reaperducer 5y ago
this is just a cutesy title for a work history interview. If a company thinks that life=work, then that's a red flag.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Shopify has a pretty solid rep for having good work life balance, and in general. I routinely hear stories of people taking pay cuts to work there because of how well it integrates into life.
totally 5y ago
They used to say "tell me a little bit about yourself." At least for a literal-minded developer the "little bit" added some guard rails against unnecessary verbosity.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
This is the kind of process you end up with when you have way, way too many people paid to do a certain job. It probably sounded great on a slide deck somewhere after months or years of iteration, but once it reaches front-line employees who do the actual work I’m guessing it’s just another arbitrary process they have to follow to do their job the corporate-approved way.
- gumby 5y ago
  The author comsidered that the low arsehole ratio might be a result of this process.
ericmcer 5y ago
I had a similar experience at a company that made software that scanned text for social equality (i.e. it would flag something like "our guys make great bread") in corporate copy. I am pretty liberal but was still kinda nervous about not being "woke" enough, so when the interviewer asked me about times I had faced adversity I launched into a diatribe about breaking away from a conservative religious background and friction with my family etc. She was like... "ok how about adversity in your past software roles?"
- mediaman 5y ago
  That's pretty funny. I have to admit, though: "adversity" is an odd term to use when they meant challenges specifically related to your past jobs. Ask about how a candidate dealt with conflict, or dealt with being asked to meet an unreasonable timeline, sure: but adversity? Especially for a company that worked on social equity issues, conflating life adversity with sundry issues faced in a corporate job seems odd. Your answer seems pretty appropriate!
- sequoia 5y ago
  That's hilarious! Also a bit disturbing that you felt the need to recite some political "party line" to get a job (not that I think you were wrong), but I suppose if it's an explicitly political org it could make sense. But more generally, I'm now interested in completely misinterpreted interview questions, and funny stories about same.
  - plasticchris 5y ago
    My favorite was at a dying startup when Amazon interviewed anyone willing and gave us all their leadership principles to read beforehand. One person got a question wrong and when challenged thought they were testing on “disagree and commit” and so doubled down thinking that’s what they wanted to see.
treis 5y ago
It's kind of odd how much of the interview process for a developer is counter-intuitive. Like the coding challenge. The naive expectation is that you quickly and correctly solve the problem they give you. But the actual expectation emphasizes asking about edge cases and collaborating with your interviewer. Solving the problem quickly and correctly is not actually the optimal solution. Partially because it doesn't allow you to demonstrate collaboration but also because the interviewer might think you've seen the problem before and have memorized a solution. Even though memorizing a solution and regurgitating it is basically what everyone does on these challenges. General work experience questions are similar. You don't want to tell the truth. You want to give a STAR (situation, task, action, result) answer that shows you have whatever characteristic they're looking for. The majority of people won't have actual good stories for most of those so just hammer that grain of truth into whatever the interviewer wants. I'd add thoughts about system design, but I really suck at those and still haven't quite figured out what everyone's looking for.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  > The majority of people won't have actual good stories Oh, god. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get people to respond with concrete stories. Lie for all I care, but tell me something about what you've done in the past. Granted, I haven't interviewed anyone since I was in college hiring other college students, so hopefully people in the real job market do better here.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- pgwhalen 5y ago
  I've given ~50 system design interviews. Personally, I'm looking for a combination of problem solving and collaboration skills. I am not particularly concerned about the quality of the system they have designed by the end of the interview, I'm more interested in: - whether they understand an issue when I try to "poke a hole" in their design - whether they can quickly synthesize that problem into a possible solution (even if it isn't the best solution) and what the tradeoffs of the solution are - how easy it is for me to understand the solution as they're explaining it Essentially, I am testing their ability to contribute in a technical design discussion while remaining humble and open minded. I admit it would also be nice to test their ability to actually design a good system, but rating someone on their ability to do that in a reasonable time frame seems far too fraught with biases around what "good" is or the degree of familiarity with the domain.

MattGaiser 5y ago

I made the same mistake in the Life Story interview. I thought it was about why I became a dev. Except I only realized that about 15 minutes in.

ma2rten 5y ago
Sounds like it's ripe for (creating the perception of) discrimination.
- evilduck 5y ago
  The intent could very well be to get people to volunteer information you otherwise can’t directly ask. “Life story” is such an odd way to label it if they just want to know your career path to date.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Nullinker 5y ago
Communication goes both ways. It is a very reasonable assumption that a life story is about your whole life, not just your education and professional career. The recruiters should explain what they mean if they are redefining terms, especially since people regularly interpret it differently.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  This is what Shopify has to say about the Life Story: > For the Life Story, you can expect an informal 60-minute conversation via video with a Recruiter from our team. Interviews at Shopify are two-sided conversations. We are genuinely interested in getting to know you and we want you to get to know us, too. It seemed so out of the blue to be asked the typical questions contract recruiters ask about programming languages and years of experience in those languages.
  - sequoia 5y ago
    Yeah this sort of language was what threw me off. It explicitly states that they want to "get to know you" in a way that, presumably, extends beyond "how many years JavaScript experience." I actually remember thinking "perhaps figuring out that the question they asked is not the question they actually want answered is the test. Figuring out that a stakeholder wants something very different than what they initially ask for is a very important skill for developers." If so, good on shopify recruiters! They're playing 3D chess.
nkrisc 5y ago
The worst thing about this (apart from the obviously misleading name) is if you correctly interpret it, it implies your work is your life.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  That would scare me at any other company, but Shopify has an excellent reputation for WLB, so at least at the time that thought did not occur.

reaperducer 5y ago

this is just a cutesy title for a work history interview. If a company thinks that life=work, then that's a red flag.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Shopify has a pretty solid rep for having good work life balance, and in general. I routinely hear stories of people taking pay cuts to work there because of how well it integrates into life.

totally 5y ago

They used to say "tell me a little bit about yourself." At least for a literal-minded developer the "little bit" added some guard rails against unnecessary verbosity.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

This is the kind of process you end up with when you have way, way too many people paid to do a certain job. It probably sounded great on a slide deck somewhere after months or years of iteration, but once it reaches front-line employees who do the actual work I’m guessing it’s just another arbitrary process they have to follow to do their job the corporate-approved way.

gumby 5y ago
The author comsidered that the low arsehole ratio might be a result of this process.

ericmcer 5y ago

I had a similar experience at a company that made software that scanned text for social equality (i.e. it would flag something like "our guys make great bread") in corporate copy. I am pretty liberal but was still kinda nervous about not being "woke" enough, so when the interviewer asked me about times I had faced adversity I launched into a diatribe about breaking away from a conservative religious background and friction with my family etc. She was like... "ok how about adversity in your past software roles?"

mediaman 5y ago
That's pretty funny. I have to admit, though: "adversity" is an odd term to use when they meant challenges specifically related to your past jobs. Ask about how a candidate dealt with conflict, or dealt with being asked to meet an unreasonable timeline, sure: but adversity? Especially for a company that worked on social equity issues, conflating life adversity with sundry issues faced in a corporate job seems odd. Your answer seems pretty appropriate!
sequoia 5y ago
That's hilarious! Also a bit disturbing that you felt the need to recite some political "party line" to get a job (not that I think you were wrong), but I suppose if it's an explicitly political org it could make sense. But more generally, I'm now interested in completely misinterpreted interview questions, and funny stories about same.
- plasticchris 5y ago
  My favorite was at a dying startup when Amazon interviewed anyone willing and gave us all their leadership principles to read beforehand. One person got a question wrong and when challenged thought they were testing on “disagree and commit” and so doubled down thinking that’s what they wanted to see.

treis 5y ago

It's kind of odd how much of the interview process for a developer is counter-intuitive. Like the coding challenge. The naive expectation is that you quickly and correctly solve the problem they give you. But the actual expectation emphasizes asking about edge cases and collaborating with your interviewer. Solving the problem quickly and correctly is not actually the optimal solution. Partially because it doesn't allow you to demonstrate collaboration but also because the interviewer might think you've seen the problem before and have memorized a solution. Even though memorizing a solution and regurgitating it is basically what everyone does on these challenges. General work experience questions are similar. You don't want to tell the truth. You want to give a STAR (situation, task, action, result) answer that shows you have whatever characteristic they're looking for. The majority of people won't have actual good stories for most of those so just hammer that grain of truth into whatever the interviewer wants. I'd add thoughts about system design, but I really suck at those and still haven't quite figured out what everyone's looking for.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
> The majority of people won't have actual good stories Oh, god. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get people to respond with concrete stories. Lie for all I care, but tell me something about what you've done in the past. Granted, I haven't interviewed anyone since I was in college hiring other college students, so hopefully people in the real job market do better here.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
pgwhalen 5y ago
I've given ~50 system design interviews. Personally, I'm looking for a combination of problem solving and collaboration skills. I am not particularly concerned about the quality of the system they have designed by the end of the interview, I'm more interested in: - whether they understand an issue when I try to "poke a hole" in their design - whether they can quickly synthesize that problem into a possible solution (even if it isn't the best solution) and what the tradeoffs of the solution are - how easy it is for me to understand the solution as they're explaining it Essentially, I am testing their ability to contribute in a technical design discussion while remaining humble and open minded. I admit it would also be nice to test their ability to actually design a good system, but rating someone on their ability to do that in a reasonable time frame seems far too fraught with biases around what "good" is or the degree of familiarity with the domain.