Shopify internships: the engineering program, the interviews, and Dev Degree

Shopify offers Engineering and Data Internships in software, infrastructure, security, data, product data science, and applied machine learning. You do not need to be a student: anyone with under two years of experience in the craft can apply. The process is an application, about an hour of assessments, a Craft interview, and a Life Story interview. Interns work in an office at least three days a week.

Shopify is also unusually public about why it wants interns. It writes that it is expanding its internship program tenfold while going all in on AI. Everything below comes from Shopify's internship site and careers page, checked October 31, 2026.

Why Shopify says it wants more interns

In a post on its internship site, Shopify takes on the idea that AI will eliminate junior roles. It says it is going to hire more interns and extend more permanent offers to them than ever before. It describes an internal coding agent called River that people use in public Slack channels, so new engineers can watch how experienced people, including its CEO, work through problems.

For applicants, the practical message is that using AI well is expected, not suspicious. Be ready to talk about how you use these tools and how you check their output.

The hiring process

1. 1

   Apply

   Shopify asks for a full application with all questions answered. It looks for desire to work at Shopify, some relevant experience, authenticity, and autonomy.
2. 2

   Shopify Assessments

   Successful applicants are emailed mandatory assessments covering technical skills and likely success at Shopify. They should take about an hour.
3. 3

   Craft Assessment interview

   An interview with a Shopify engineer. You are told ahead of time what to prepare.
4. 4

   Life Story interview

   The final interview, about the themes of your journey so far, what you learned, and how you made a difference. You receive preparation information first.
5. 5

   Decision and team placement

   Successful applicants are placed individually on teams based on interests, skills, and experience.

What makes an application stand out

Shopify says it looks at everything, including internship experience, projects, activities, interests, and club involvement, and that it looks for passion, curiosity, and people who learn beyond what is expected. Its careers page also invites exceptional technical people to skip the resume and show what they have built through an alternative path.

Each intern is paired with a mentor and treated like a full time employee on real projects. Shopify asks that you prioritize working full time during the internship, so you cannot also be in school full time.

Dev Degree and other early programs

• Dev Degree: a computer science degree combined with placements at Shopify. Shopify says it pays for the degree plus a salary, and that students graduate with 3,800 or more hours of development experience and no student debt. Applications for 2026 had closed when checked. How this compares to a normal program is covered in internship vs co-op.
• Design Apprentice Program: a six month paid placement for early career designers.
• Apprentice Product Manager Program: a paid 12 month apprenticeship rotating through two product teams, with no prior product experience required.

How to prepare

• Build something real and finished. A deployed project gives you material for both the Craft and Life Story rounds. Ideas are in internship portfolio projects.
• Practice telling your story. Pick three or four moments where you made a decision, what you did, and what changed.
• Learn what Shopify does.Try building a small store or app. Shopify's mission is making commerce better for everyone, so understanding merchants helps.
• Keep your search broad. While you wait for a window to open, keep applying using the full internship plan.