Why I’m joining Shopify.
As of last week I’ve officially joined Shopify as the Culture Specialist for Shopify Plus in Waterloo. 🎉
Last month I wrote a post announcing to the world that I was looking for new job opportunities. It took time to work up the courage to finally publish it, but I’m so glad I did because the opportunities that came from it would not have happened otherwise. I’ve spent a lot of time writing and speaking about career advice — particularly for young professionals — over the last year and so before I dig into my path to Shopify I’d love to touch on why I think that post was so successful and the lessons I learned.
From that post I had 18 interviews with 11 different companies over the course of two weeks. Now, I definitely understand that not everyone is in a position to publish a post like that AND not everyone would have those kinds of results. In the difficult periods with Ways We Work, I sometimes questioned if working on the site full-time, mostly without pay for over a year was the best choice for my personal career. However, it’s clear now that the connections and support network I’ve developed over the last two years is more valuable than anything else I’ve gained. People are incredible. When a cliché is true, it’s true — build your network and start right now. That post was read by over 1,000 people thanks to everyone who shared it and almost all the interviews I had came directly from that post.
If you’d like to learn more about the things I learned through the job hunt process, and want to pick my brain, feel free to send me an email. But, for now I’d love to dig into why I chose Shopify.
Joining Shopify
My path to joining Shopify actually starts back in April. I attended a Slack panel in Toronto that was all about how different teams use Slack. On the panel was Konval Matin, Shopify’s Director of Culture. Konval’s role immediately piqued my interest and after hearing her talk a bit about what her team did and how Shopify uses Slack — I knew I needed to interview her for Ways We Work. It took us a couple months to find a good time to connect, and that interview went up last month. It just so happens the timing was serendipitous.
It was early August that I really started to think about looking for new opportunities. I hadn’t really committed to the idea yet when I came across a job posting for a Culture Specialist at Shopify in Waterloo. The role sounded so interesting and I figured there was no harm in applying. So, I submitted an application. I knew a friend working on the UX team in Waterloo so let her know I’d applied and she passed my info on to the recruiting team.
Over the past two months I’ve had the opportunity to meet multiple people on both the culture team and the Shopify Plus team in Waterloo, and with every interview became increasingly excited about the role and the people at Shopify. I mentioned the timing with Konval was serendipitous because I’d had two interviews for the role just before we chatted for Ways We Work. The day after I interviewed her, she interviewed me.
Shopify and the culture team specifically stood out amongst all of the teams I spoke to for a number of reasons. First off, they are known for their unparalleled culture and talking to friends who worked at Shopify already, they had nothing but good things to say about what an incredible place it is to grow your career. In all of my interviews, one thing that stood out to me was how candid and open everyone was. It’s obviously not a secret that I value (read: obsess) over those two traits and that was so encouraging. Lastly, it’s exactly the role I’ve been looking for. After two years of observing and interviewing people and teams about how they do meaningful work — I’m itching to do more than just observe. I want to have a real and direct impact on making a team better and help make people’s work more meaningful. I can’t imagine a better place to do that than at a place like Shopify, and what’s more I get to do it in my hometown of Waterloo.
Culture at Shopify
Culture can be a complex thing to define and explain. At Shopify the culture team focuses specifically on creating holistic employee experiences. If you’re curious about what the culture team at Shopify does and specifically what a Culture Specialist does, you should definitely read Konval’s Ways We Work interview here: http://wayswework.io/interviews/konval-matin-director-of-culture-at-shopify
“We define culture as the sum of every single individual at Shopify. Every person plays a part in creating it, and when someone leaves or joins, they have a direct impact on the culture.” — Konval, on culture at Shopify
On Culture Specialists specifically:
“…the culture specialists have a very mixed and, I think, exciting role. They’re the eyes and ears on the ground. They’re really close to people and there’s a lot of relationship building. They onboard new hires every two weeks, and set up the Town Halls. They work with coaches and leads to find out what we’re doing well and where we could improve. They are kind of the voice of the people and we have one in almost every office.”
Getting to know people and understanding how they do their best work is what I’ve spent the last 2+ years doing, and I’m so excited to be able to push that in this new direction.
What about Ways We Work?
I’ve had a lot of people ask about what’s going to happen to Ways We Work. Don’t worry! It’s not going anywhere. I’ve taken a bit of a break while I transition into my new role and think about how to grow the site going forward, but new interviews and content are coming real soon.
If reading this got you excited about joining Shopify, that’s awesome, because we’re hiring!
