Interviewing at Shopify was one of the strangest experiences of my life. I've moved on and I don't see myself applying again, but I still feel bewildered whenever I think about it. As someone else mentioned, they really do take you for a ride.
I know it's common to get your hopes up during an interview process, but at every stage of the game they really made me feel like they wanted me. I would finish an interview, and almost immediately afterwards the recruiter would email me to say "We'd like to bring you in for another interview ASAP". As the process went on, I met with people of increasing seniority (usually a good sign).
I met with three different employees for one position, only to be told over a month later "We realized we're looking for someone with X skill (which you don't have)". Would have been great if they had realized that before posting the job. In my experience, a third interview usually takes place when it's between you and maybe 1-2 other people, so to get a call saying "You weren't what we wanted in the first place" was not what I was expecting.
My application included a writing exercise, which made sense to me at the time as writing was a big part of the role. I spent days working extremely hard on my "assignment", only to be extremely discouraged when not one interviewer mentioned my work or asked me any questions about it. I was left wondering if they had even read it (one interview flat-out admitted he hadn't read it). If you're going to ask candidates to put their best effort into a piece of unpaid work, the least you could do is provide some feedback.
I did appreciate that the recruiter was responsive and that everyone I met with at Shopify was pleasant and friendly. I genuinely enjoyed the conversations we had. But judging from my experience and a number of other comments I've read here, they really need to fine-tune their interviewing process in the interest of not wasting their time and potential candidates' time.
btw, I applied to two positions, and months after hearing back that I didn't get either job, both positions were still posted on the Shopify website. This confused me even further. Did the positions even exist? Or if they did exist, could Shopify not find ONE qualified candidate? How is it at all efficient to bring someone in THREE times to meet with three separate people, only to slightly tweak the job listing and repost it?
It seems like a great place to work, but how anyone gets hired there I'll never know.