I was reached out to by a recruiter then asked to do an IQ and personality test which took about an hour. While I understand the point of these, it ultimately felt like a waste of time and like a different way to discriminate based on how well you aligned with the company's mantras / are neurotypical / great at taking SATs. I then met with two team members to do a case study. It was similar to other faaang which is to say robotic interviewers and a general vibe of pretentiousness. One interviewer was late and so it was not clear if we would have enough time to cover everything. Overall, came off like a place I would not feel excited to work at based on the assessment and lack of feedback after time committed. Felt pretty one-sided and arrogant as a first impression.

It was a week after I applied that I had gotten an email from the recruiter to interview. It was with the Hiring manager. She seemed rather quick to rush me off the phone, and I didn't think I'd get a followup interview. The next step was the life story interview, which I thought went well. I really connected with the recruiter, and had a great time.. However a few days after it I had gotten the rejection that they were going with more qualified candidates.

I applied through their website and heard back the next week. I got an email to book a call with the recruiter (I really liked being able to pick a time through a website - it was so convenient!) and picked a time that worked for me. The email linked me to their hiring process info and let me know that it would be a quick 20 minute call. When my call came I was really surprised when I found out it was a *technical* interview and not a quick call with a recruiter at all. The Welcome Back posting I applied to was aimed to getting people who previously worked as programmers (and had to not be programming for at least 3 years) back into programming, so I was completely unprepared to answer technical questions. The recruited asked me to talk, in detail, about how I wrote code for previous work and school projects, and while I tried my best to answer, it was clear that the call was not going well. Had I known that I'd be talking about my previous dev experience in detail I would've spent a few hours looking back at past projects. I'm thankful I got a rejection only a week later so I wasn't wondering what was going on. It's the worst when companies leave you hanging. I've heard excellent things about Shopify and I'll keep my eye out for future postings. I just hope in the future they'll be much more clear about the interview process. I was really looking forward to speaking with a recruiter and learning more about the program itself, but the woman who I spoke with, who was a programmer, didn't have any info about the program. Their website talks about technical interviews coming later in the process, and that it starts with initial recruiter calls and a "life story" interview. Moral of the story: be prepared for technical interviews immediately!