Shopify Is a Sinking Ship

Shopify
stonkify

Go to company page Shopify

stonkify
Mar 24 288 Comments

I'm posting this publicly to get the word out there, but Shopify is not a well-run company. While the majority of people and the WLB are both fantastic, the entire company direction and its culture have been decimated by the pandemic. I don't want to be all doom and gloom to potential new hires, but if I were you I would look elsewhere. A few things that come to mind:

- Poor Compensation (especially following the stock crash as base salary is low by design as they heavily index on RSUs)

- Out of Touch Leadership (e.g. https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1506681894489968640?t=-h0oEC9as8Wl3gOmp_pQ_w&s=19)

- Lack of Vision (I can't go into too many specifics here but there have not been any major innovations in Shopify in a few years and all the new things coming up sound really awful)

- Revolving Door of People (Everyone who got rich pre-crash is leaving or has left. Everyone that is left is much newer and a lot are out the door following the stock crash too)

- Lack of Culture (Slack is the only real means of company communication and it is monitored, policed and filtered. We do not have complete free expression. There are occasional meetups but it's few and far between)

Needless to say I'm quite pessimistic on this company. They could right the ship with some drastic leadership changes, but on their current trajectory I don't see them succeeding like they did in the 2010's. Happy to discuss or answer any questions I can legally address.

Level: L6
YOE: 7
TC: $140,000 (CAD) and $155,000 (USD) RSUs over 3 year vest (Pre-Crash)

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 TOP 288 Comments
  • Google
    harveb

    Go to company page Google

    harveb
    I’m curious what people think of Tobi internally. I can’t imagine working for a dude with a NFT twitter pic and he’s said some dumb shit on there
    Mar 24 12
    • Shopify
      sadcomp

      Go to company page Shopify

      sadcomp
      lol the man built the company from $0 to $100 billion, and that guys a joke?? From what I've seen in my time here, the guy's a strongly opinionated, inspirational, and super smart person. He's been pushing Shopify to explore new areas including NFTs, and I don't see anything wrong with it. Would be nice if he did appear in the weekly townhalls more often tho instead of the other bs.
      Mar 30
    • Shopify
      NotTobi

      Go to company page Shopify

      NotTobi
      He built Shopify? I remember there being a lot of other people there. Regardless, being right once doesn’t mean he’s right all the time and this NFT thing seems like a grasp to drive GMV (or maybe he’s stupid enough to believe it).

      I wonder how often our philosopher CEO talks to people that either don’t report to him or aren’t devs.
      Mar 30
  • Meta
    sighsigh3

    Go to company page Meta

    sighsigh3
    most big tech companies can put up a similar rant
    Mar 24 9
  • Shopify
    chTH87

    Go to company page Shopify

    chTH87
    Also, avoid Kaz!

    He's the worst leader I've seen in my life. There was a principal engineer who internally shared a doc that puts a light on the toxic behavior of this so called leader.
    Mar 24 10
  • New / Eng
    naptime😴

    New Eng

     naptime😴
    slack is monitored? So the things being said about company culture are fake?
    Mar 24 14
    • Shopify
      NotTobi

      Go to company page Shopify

      NotTobi
      In the past few years Shopify has gone from 5K employees to over 13K. The senior leadership team has no idea how to handle this many people and it definitely shows. We were just told that we hired a Chief Talent Officer, a role which has been empty since last September.
      Mar 31
    • New / HR
      rmmI74

      New HR

       rmmI74
      Not impressed with the Chief talent officer hire. they could at least hire someone from a tech company?
      Apr 4
  • Shopify
    IVju03

    Go to company page Shopify

    IVju03
    To add to OP, promotions and growth opportunities for tenured have completely stalled/stagnated. There’s been a clear shift in prioritizing external hires vs growing people internally. Middle management is ballooning with more and more layers of approval required for exceedingly simple requests.

    Lead/report power dynamic is completely broken with zero avenues for accountability, the quality of your lead and whether they have basic competency to be performing their role is a crapshoot, but moving teams also requires their sign off.

    They’ve basically tossed the cultural values except for “thriving on change” which gets spammed into the ground to cover for the fact that nobody in leadership has the conviction to follow through on anything or stick to a decision. The result is extreme amounts of churn with no support for employees.

    Source: I had 5 leads in the last year and it fucking sucked to repeatedly shoulder the burden of relationship building/meeting different peoples wildly varying expectations.
    Mar 24 18
    • @stonkify That makes sense. Your rsu grant lost its value and staying for it to vest at a lower price than what you can get elsewhere is not as smart.

      Q. After the cliff of 1 year vest in Aug 22, is subsequent vesting quarterly or yearly? Just curious
      5d
    • Shopify
      stonkify

      Go to company page Shopify

      stonkify
      OP
      It is quarterly after the first year. Spread over 3 years total.
      4d