Stay at Autodesk or Go To Shopify?
I am getting an offer from Shopify, and it's at the staff level. I am kind of looking for a change in scenery and want to gain more tech lead experience. I've heard nothing but horrible things about the culture at Shopify on Blind, which is very concerning and off-putting to me. I really want to take this offer but the amount of negative things I see about Shopify worries me. The culture at Autodesk is for the most part really good. My manager is awesome and he indicated that he will promote me to Principal in January. I don't feel like I fit into the team I'm in at Autodesk, and from a career advancement standpoint, I don't think I'll ever be seen as a leader, which is what I want. Current TC (Autodesk): 280K CAD Shopify offer: ? YOE: 8 #careers #interview
Ask them if promotions are still frozen and if you get any bonuses.
Will do. Thanks!
No bonus and promos are a mess. Process is never clear and the goal post changes with every impact review. A very small amount of people at junior and mid level might see a promo after the impact cycle we just had. But you get the promo first and the raise 6 months later at minimum lol. Anyone hoping for a promo above senior needs to interview internally and only if there’s a business need.
Honestly I’d be happy to switch places with you. Shopify is full of borderline toxic managers (guess they need to be toxic to survive). There are no promotions. No year end bonuses. No raises. There is a constant blaming culture coming from all the way up in C-level exec and trickles down to lower level managers. Everything everywhere all at once is the IC’s fault 😁. I can’t wait to get out of this place.
That sounds very discouraging. 😞 But thanks for your honest insights!
If you could see what our private channel and pulse score looks like on blind… you’d never think of joining for a second. We’re turning into a boomer bank… run as fast as you can.
Is it really that bad? Is the culture team dependent though?
The post above mine captures the gist of it: No growth opportunities, sub-inflation raises for high performers, toxic gaslighting management, chaos all the time, WLB not as good as before, very likely going back to RTO in the future. Unfortunately, these things you can’t avoid on any team. Our reputation is dropping sharply. Having Shopify on your resume is losing a lot value going forward. It’s not a good time to join anymore.
Shopify has become a dictatorship where if you voice any sort of criticism, they close out that public forum and you’ll like be exited. They have let go of people for posting a meme that was making fun of Shopify’s stock 🤦 it’s unbelievably bad man!
Total bummer!
I don’t know if it’s always exit, I doubt Shopify is this stupid yet. But last year there was a post on slack where people voiced genuine concern about something leadership fucked up on, and hundreds of people reacted with 👎 emoji. Guess what, everyone who reacted to that post, their manager got pinged by HRBP to have a conversation with that report about respect. I am a manager and got pinged. I immediately told the person to not worry about it and we had a laugh 🤦🏼♀️
I was promoted in the spring performance cycle, which is by itself more than half a year late (performing at next level for 15 months) due to last year’s promo freeze. Got a 10% raise for the promo and was told that this is the new maximum for raises each time, but not to worry because there are two performance management per year, so the second raise of the year might make up for it. The second perf review of the year finished and I got 0. My entire team got zero, even the high performing ones. We had worked so much to make up for our laid off team members, we all got sick multiple times this year. It’s not our boss’s fault, the company simply likes to promise one thing and deliver another, or not deliver at all.
Moving here is career suicide.
Is it possible that things can improve at Shopify? The stock is rising too.
Ok some of these takes from Shopify people are just bananas. It's not THAT bad. There's a high number of extremely jaded people on our Blind. The positives are that some teams are highly interesting work, working on problems with scale you don't typically get to see. Sure, there's some culture changes that have upset people, like the promotion process. But usually in my experience Shopify self corrects over time. Usually the job itself is highly dependent on which team you're on. Things are usually pretty constrained to your team and org culture. Some are worse than others. I'd wait to hear the offer and see which team placements they offer you. Here's what I'd recommend: hedge your bet. If you have a good working relationship with your manager at autodesk, then it's likely you could get hired back if it doesn't work out in a year. (I'm a staff eng / ex manager). Also CAD TC is 360.
If you just listen to 1 person vs all because that person aligns with what you hope to hear, then Shopify is for you. From Shopify eng, stay at Autodesk
Not sure what I'll do yet. Waiting to hear about the TC package first. I'm considering all opinions. But it's good to get a balanced set as everyone will have different experiences.
This is mostly untrue, you’d struggle to find more than 3 people who have been at Shopify in a similar position for 2+ years that have net positive things to say
Man leaving Autodesk , for Shopify doesn’t sound like a good plan.
I was afraid you'd say that. Autodesk is a great organization but I feel like there's more potential to advance at Shopify.
Shopify has recently introduced innovative 🤮 changes that effectively halt any potential career progression for almost all of its hardworking employees.