Crafting Intensity: Shopify's Approach to Engineering Excellence

Creating Intensity in Engineering Organizations

Shopify, a leading e-commerce platform with over 10,000 employees, has managed to maintain urgency, velocity, and first-principles thinking despite its size and age. Much of this can be attributed to Furhan Ther, Shopify's Vice President and Head of Engineering. In a recent interview, Furhan shared specific strategies for maintaining intensity and urgency within the engineering team.

The Power of Pair Programming

One of the key tools Shopify uses to create intensity is pair programming. Furhan explains:

"Pair programming is the most underutilized management tool in engineering bar none. It's just not used as much as it could be."

In pair programming, two engineers work together on one computer. This practice leads to:

• Higher code quality
• Faster problem-solving
• Increased knowledge transfer
• Reduced distractions

Furhan notes that while it may seem counterintuitive to have two engineers working on one task, the benefits far outweigh the perceived loss in productivity. He compares it to the underhanded free throw in basketball - statistically proven to be more effective, but rarely used because it looks unconventional.

Intensity Through Regular Check-ins

Shopify has implemented several practices to maintain intensity and focus:

1. Weekly Updates (GSD - Get Stuff Done): Teams provide weekly updates on their progress to the entire company. This creates a sense of accountability and drives progress.

2. Six-Week Reviews: Every six weeks, teams present their roadmap, resourcing, and progress to leadership, including CEO Toby Lütke. This regular cadence ensures teams are consistently moving forward and allows for quick course corrections.

3. Demo Culture: Engineers are encouraged to share high-fidelity updates, including actual demos of their work. This allows for faster feedback and iteration.

Furhan emphasizes that these check-ins are not about micromanagement, but about pairing on problems and providing support where needed.

The 'Chaos Monkey' Approach to Meetings

Shopify has implemented an innovative approach to managing meetings:

• Once a year, all recurring meetings with more than two people are deleted.
• There's a two-week moratorium on adding new recurring meetings.
• This forces teams to reassess the necessity of each meeting and often results in significant time savings.

The result? Individual contributors at Shopify spend an average of just three hours per week in meetings, down from 5-6 hours before this practice was implemented.

Balancing Communication Channels

To reduce distractions, Shopify moved all announcement and status update communications from Slack to Facebook Workplace. This separation allows employees to consume company updates on their own time, rather than being constantly pinged with notifications.

Choosing the Hard Path

Furhan advocates for choosing the harder path when faced with multiple options. He explains:

"If you do the hard path and it doesn't work, you still kind of win because you've now done something hard, you've probably worked with smart people, you've learned something along the way that is valuable."

This philosophy extends to how Shopify approaches problem-solving and product development. For example, when rebuilding their Point of Sale system, they chose to invest more time upfront to create a flexible, API-driven platform rather than quickly building a specific solution. This approach, while more time-consuming initially, allows for faster development and greater flexibility in the long run.

Innovative Hiring Practices

Shopify takes a unique approach to hiring, focusing on real-world performance over traditional interviews:

The Power of Internships

Shopify plans to hire 1,000 interns in 2025. This massive internship program serves multiple purposes:

1. It provides a real-world 'job trial' for potential full-time hires.
2. It brings fresh perspectives and ideas into the company.
3. It helps restart the early talent ecosystem after recent industry layoffs.

Furhan sees internships not as community service, but as a valuable source of talent and innovation.

Looking Beyond Traditional Credentials

Furhan shared stories of successful hires from unconventional backgrounds, including:

• A coffee shop patron with no formal software experience who became a successful machine learning engineer.
• A waitress who impressed with her organizational skills and eventually became a director of HR at another company.

These examples highlight Shopify's focus on identifying talent and potential, regardless of formal qualifications.

Building a 'Crafter's Paradise'

Shopify aims to be a place where 'crafters' - engineers, UX designers, product managers, and others - can practice and improve their craft. This philosophy drives many of their practices, from pair programming to their approach to meetings and communication.

Embracing Failure and Learning

Furhan shared a personal story of a significant mistake he made early in his tenure at Shopify, which cost the company 18 months of engineering time. However, CEO Toby Lütke's response was not to reprimand, but to encourage sharing the story and learning from it.

This attitude towards failure - seeing it as an opportunity for learning and growth - is a key part of Shopify's culture and contributes to their ability to move quickly and take risks.

The Importance of Simplification

Shopify has a strong focus on simplifying their codebase. They have a 'delete code club' and regularly delete millions of lines of code. This focus on simplification leads to:

• Improved performance
• Better maintainability
• Easier onboarding for new engineers

Furhan emphasizes that the goal is not to have the largest codebase, but the most elegant and efficient one.

Conclusion

Shopify's approach to engineering excellence is multifaceted, combining innovative practices like pair programming and regular check-ins with a culture that embraces risk-taking, learning from failure, and constant simplification. By focusing on creating intensity, choosing the hard path, and looking beyond traditional hiring criteria, Shopify has built an engineering organization that continues to drive innovation and growth, even as the company has scaled to over 10,000 employees.

For engineering leaders looking to create high-performing teams, Shopify's practices offer valuable insights. While not every approach may be directly applicable to every organization, the underlying principles - fostering intensity, embracing challenges, and prioritizing learning and simplification - can be adapted to suit a variety of engineering environments.

As the tech industry continues to evolve, particularly with the rise of AI and remote work, Shopify's ability to maintain its startup-like agility and innovation at scale serves as an inspiring example for other organizations. By continually questioning assumptions, experimenting with new approaches, and focusing on creating an environment where talented individuals can thrive, Shopify has positioned itself for continued success in the rapidly changing world of e-commerce and beyond.

Article created from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_lhMOjG7PE