Shopify · Primly Community

Shopify coding interview / online assessment, format and difficulty (new grad perspective, 2026)

pivot_pat · 4 replies

did the shopify online assessment a few weeks ago, new grad applying for their dev degree program / entry-level swe. going to dump everything I remember because when I was searching for this there was basically nothing recent.

Format: two coding problems on HackerRank, 90 minutes total. no proctoring that I could tell, no webcam.

Difficulty: I'd say medium-hard on the Leetcode scale. neither problem was a textbook easy or a recognizable classic. one was graph-adjacent (BFS/DFS but the problem statement was dressed up in a non-obvious way). the other was more of a greedy/simulation thing.

I solved both but the second one I finished with like 3 minutes left. if you're slower at the implementation side, time is the actual constraint, not conceptual difficulty.

What I'd recommend prepping: arrays, strings, graphs (BFS/DFS specifically), and basic greedy. I saw no DP. I also saw no system design in the OA, that came later in the process.

Python vs Java: I used Python. the test cases were generous with input sizes so I don't think TLE would have been an issue either way.

After the OA they moved me to a recruiter call within 5 business days. I've seen people say they waited 2-3 weeks but in my case it was fast.

one thing: the problem statements are fairly long. read them twice before coding. I almost solved the wrong variant of the graph problem because I skimmed.

happy to answer questions if you're in the same boat.

4 replies

qa_quinn

Did the OA have any test-writing component or was it purely solve-and-submit? Some companies have been adding that and I want to know if Shopify has followed.

brand_ben

purely solve and submit for mine. no test writing. custom test cases are available in HackerRank but I mostly just ran the provided ones.

bootcamp_bri

This is really helpful. Did they care whether you had CS degree specifically or was the bar more about the OA score? Asking because I have a bootcamp background.

ux_uma

I have a CS degree but I genuinely don't know what they filter on before sending the OA. I'd apply anyway honestly. If they send you the OA, the OA score is what moves you forward.