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That Shopify employs 3,000 engineers is astounding. I was rejected after a fairly basic ML interview at Shopify and when I asked for feedback I was told someda
by keithcarolus 25d ago
That Shopify employs 3,000 engineers is astounding.
I was rejected after a fairly basic ML interview at Shopify and when I asked for feedback I was told someday I could become a machine learning engineer.
I don’t think the interviewer read my resume or understood my responses as this was after working for several years in ML roles - staff applied ML and scientist.
So maybe that tells you something.
- aprilthird2021 25d agoWhy is it astounding? They have one of the biggest e-commerce applications in the world. A mobile app for shoppers. A payment system and mobile wallet app. A shipment tracking system. Tax and small business software. They have their own lending arm with its own software. They have multiple frameworks for other development teams to make super customizable e-commerce sites. They support Remix and Tailwind among other software. They have brick and mortar POS systems. They are like multiple companies in one: Square, Etsy, aspects of Stripe, aspects of Squarespace/Wordpress. Idk I can see why they have a lot of people.
- harrouet 25d agoPlus they have an Amazon-scale infrastructure to manage...
- stingraycharles 24d agoI think Amazon is very much on another level in terms of scale. Not trying to be negative about Shopify — they have a very large system to maintain - but Amazon is just on another level.
- tomnipotent 24d agoShopify is not far behind Amazon (the e-com business). It's network sees as many unique visitors as Amazon, though I imagine Amazon has more sessions per visitor, but the GMV across Shopify is just shy of half of Amazon. It's still in the same ball park.
- hackisterium 24d agoWhat metic are you using? Shopify takes an average of ~$1bn at checkout daily while Amazon is over 2bn.
- tomnipotent 24d agoYes, Shopify GMV is roughly half of Amazon.
- tonyedgecombe 24d agoAmazon don't seem release any figures but I've seen estimates of 50,000 to 100,000 engineers. They do have 1.576 million employees worldwide (2025 figure).
- stingraycharles 24d agoYes but “Amazon-scale infra” as the grandparent mentions should absolutely include AWS, and Shopify is nowhere near that size.
- hackisterium 24d agoCombined Shopify sales are ~half of Amazon's but growing quicker. Shopify probably supports more sales per engineer than Amazon's retail stack team.
- echoangle 24d agoAmazon also has AWS as infra though, they only do retail as a side gig
- aprilthird2021 24d agoThey also have enormous fulfillment services. Shopify doesn't handle that part. They also have video and music streaming. And Kindle Unlimited.
- tonyedgecombe 24d ago>I asked for feedback Even if they gave you feedback I think you would have to take it with a pinch of salt. Hiring decisions are more emotional than most people would admit.
- oceansky 24d agoEven an emotional feedback could be potentially useful for self-improvement. Asking doesn't hurt.
- bcjdjsndon 24d agoI think you overestimate the competence of interviewers. They could well give you terrible advice
- oceansky 24d agoI agree, but I don't have to take it at face value either. It is just one data point after all. Usually I am interviewing in many places.
- runtime_terror 24d agoMost companies avoid this for liability reasons
- danielrmay 24d agoI had an eerily similar experience interviewing at a similar public SaaS co recently.