Shopify believes its e-commerce platform can accelerate millions of entrepreneurs and business owners worldwide to financial freedom. Still, Shopify recognizes that it can only achieve its mission with the help of brilliant product managers. Therefore, Shopify’s product management apprenticeship program aims to recruit a diverse group of talented yet aspiring product managers from unconventional backgrounds whose ideas can revolutionalize the e-commerce industry and pivot the company to its next growth stage.
If you’re that talented young professional, it’s time to take your spot at the next Shopify product management apprenticeship. In this detailed guide, you’ll discover how to apply to Shopify’s product management apprenticeship, the salary and benefits you should expect, how to prepare for Shopify’s apprenticeship interview, and the reviews from past Shopify apprentice product managers.
Shopify is a global multi-channel e-commerce platform that offers robust software and hardware tools for merchants to start, scale, and manage their online and physical businesses. Shopify has a 36% market share in Canada’s e-commerce software market as of 2022, according to Statista. According to BuiltWith, Shopify had a 22% e-commerce usage distribution on the internet in February 2023. The data also showed that 13% of live websites on the internet use the Shopify app.
As of December 2022, Shopify has millions of merchants across 175 countries. Fifty-five percent of its merchants are from North America; 25% from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; 15% from Asia, and 5% from Latin America. It processed 165.3 million orders per month. In the same year, Shopify recorded 11,600 global employees and contractors. The company headquarters is in Ottawa, Ontario. In addition, it has offices in Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, and San Francisco.
For the 2022 year ended, Shopify generated $5.6 billion, reflecting a 21% increase from 2021. In addition, subscription solutions revenue grew by 11% to $1.5 billion, and merchant solutions revenue grew by 26% to $4.1 billion for the same period. As a result, Shopify’s gross merchant volume (GMV) increased by 12% to $197.2 billion.
Although Tobias Lutke and Scott Lake launched Shopify in 2006, their story dates back to 2004 when Tobias following his love for snowboarding and a need to find a sustainable source of income in Canada, decided to launch Snowdevil, an online store to sell snowboarding equipment. However, none of the e-commerce solutions at the time offered the features he needed, so together with Scott Lake, he built an e-commerce software that did.
He used programming knowledge to build e-commerce software to power his store. The founders created this software using an original Ruby on Rails framework. Unfortunately, Snowdevil only sold 25 pieces, and the founders realized it wouldn’t offer them a sustainable income stream, so they decided to build Shopify using the same software. The first version of Shopify was launched in 2006, with Daniel Weinand as the Technical Founder. It offered features such as inventory management, store setup and customization, payment processing, order tracking, and credit card integration.
The company filed to amend its name to Jaded Pixel Technologies Inc on the 19th of January 2006. In 2011, it refiled to amend its name to Shopify Inc. On May 20, 2015, Shopify announced its initial public offering, pricing its shares between $14 and $16. The company’s shares began trading on the 21st of May on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “SHOP.” it offered a total of 7,700,000 Class A common shares at $17 per share, valuing the company at $1.27 billion. The IPO closed seven days later.
Shopify owns four sub-organizations: Shopify Plus, Shopify Japan, Zip Shop, and Shopify Vietnam. It has total funding of $122.3 million: $250 thousand from a seed round led by Klister Credit, $7 million in series A funding led by Bessemer Ventures Partners and FirstMark, $15 million in series B funding led by Bessemer Ventures Partners, and $100 million in series C funding from OMERS Ventures and Insight Partners. In addition, Shopify has made 20 investments, the most recent being Triple Whale, and has acquired 15 companies, the most recent being Remix and Deliverr.
Between 2017 and 2023, Shopify received accolades and recognition from top brands like Glassdoor, Mediacorp Canada, Forbes, and Fast Company as one of the best tech and SaaS companies to work for in Canada and the world.
Shopify’s mission is to “make commerce better for everyone.” Shopify helps people achieve independence by making it easier to start, run, and grow a business. It believes the future of commerce has more voices, not fewer, so it’s reducing the barriers to business ownership to make commerce better for everyone.
Shopify believes it is the choicest e-commerce solutions provider because it offers clients the following values:
Shopify offers merchant solutions and subscription services to merchants through its cloud-based platform. As a global player in the e-commerce software market, Shopify provides paid tools to merchants, content creators/influencers, web developers, and business experts.
Shopify’s subscription revenue is threefold: basic, Shopify, and advanced. Alternative subscription plans include Starter, ShopifyPlus, and Commerce Components.
Its subscription solutions come from selling subscriptions, variable platform fees, themes, 10,000+ apps, and domain registration. Shopify’s merchant solutions revenue comes from shipping and service fees (Deliverr), payment processing fees (Shopify Payments and Shopify Pay), currency conversion fees, Shopify Partner program, transaction fees, app store advertising revenue, Shopify Balance, POS hardware sales (Shopify POS system), (Shopify Email), Shopify Affiliate Program, Shopify Marketing, and Shopify Capital.
According to Stackshare, Shopify uses 38 technologies. To state clearly, the company employs 19 applications and data tools, two utilities, 15 DevOps, and two business tools. Shopify’s application and data tools include Python, React, MySQL, NGINX, Redis, React Native, Ruby, GraphQL, Golang, and Memcached. Its DevOps tools include GitHub, Git, Docker, Kubernetes, Google Kubernetes, and Buildkite. Its utilities are Elasticsearch and Bootsnap. And its business tools are Slack and Zendesk.
Shopify’s e-commerce platform was built using Ruby on Rails, as Toby was one of the original contributors to the framework. To manage the hundreds of apps running on the platform, Shopify created an internal management app, ServicesDB, which links to a GitHub issue. Since its inception, the company has stuck to MySQL as a relational database, Redis for queues and background tasks, and Memcached for key and value storage.
Shopify’s product management apprenticeship is the company’s attempt at diversifying its workforce and empowering underserved individuals to launch careers in product management. Shopify launched the apprentice product manager program in June 2021 to create new pathways to entering product management and the tech industry. The company recognizes that there’s no clear degree path to product management.
Hence, it created a program to change that by equipping candidates with the skills to succeed in that career and cultivating a network for ongoing learning and growth. Shopify provides apprentices access to mentors, educators, and senior product managers to accelerate career growth. In addition, candidates should expect constructive feedback about their performance during the program. The apprenticeship is 100% remote and available to candidates in the United States and Canada. However, plans are underway to expand the program globally.
The Shopify product management apprenticeship is a 12-month paid full-time program. On rotation, the apprentice product managers may be assigned to two product teams to learn the product craft, strategy, ideation, development, execution, planning, and delivery. You’ll work with multi-disciplinary teams, including data scientists, designers, software engineers, product marketers, and managers, to ship products to merchants worldwide. In addition, Shopify may offer you a full-time position on one of its product teams at the end of your apprenticeship.
You’ll work on the Shopify platform and APIs as an apprentice product manager. Apprentices must complete a curriculum in programming and data science. You’ll join cross-functional teams in launching products, mainly doing stand-ups to determine product cycle requirements, analyzing customer data to understand adoption rates, conducting beta tests to identify bugs, and reviewing the product features for the team. Apprentice product managers also set up customer interviews through cold emailing or on the platform and attend customer success meetings to learn ways to improve product quality.
Shopify's apprenticeship is still in the early adoption phase, so there's barely enough data to ascertain the conversion rate of this program. However, the program’s goal is to convert apprentices to independent full-time product managers within Shopify.
While Shopify doesn’t reveal its compensation rate for apprentice product managers, reviews from Glassdoor suggest that a Shopify product manager living in Canada earns an average of $76,334 annually as median pay. This figure excludes annual bonuses and other perks the apprentice may receive from Shopify.
Shopify apprentice product managers have access to a competitive salary, D15 (an opportunity to work outside of your office for a while through simple destination placements), a digital by-design workstation budget, a formal learning curriculum, learning support, coaching, mentorship, internet cost coverage, and the chance to begin their entrepreneurial journey.
Shopify Apprenticeship Selection: How Are Cohorts Chosen?
Shopify's product management apprenticeship is for career switchers, new college graduates, recent bootcamp graduates, and entrepreneurs looking to enter the product management industry. Ideal candidates have a growth mindset and can think in terms of systems. You don’t need a tech background or degree to be chosen for this program. However, you need a work permit to work up to 40 hours a week in the United States and Canada. You must also reside in North America during the one-year apprenticeship.
According to Veronica Van, Shopify APM Program lead, folks with less than one year of product experience are ideal candidates for this program. In the previous cohort, applicants have come from backgrounds in finance, design, marketing, IT support, data, engineering, and operations.
Shopify Apprenticeship Program Interview: Is the Shopify Interview Hard?
According to Shopify’s APM program lead, The hiring process for the apprenticeship is very competitive. As a prospective candidate, we advise you to take your time reviewing the application before applying, so you’ll know whether you’re a good fit. The hiring process starts with filling out an application form online. This form contains four questions that help the APM hiring team with screening. The questions measure your knowledge of Shopify and why you think product management is an ideal career path. It also contains a section for uploading your resume.
According to Tucker Weiland, Marketing Lead at Shopify, one of the critical questions you’ll need to answer are: “Tell us about a time you messed up and what you learned from it. Choose a product you’ve recently started using and describe why you use it?” Based on your performance, a recruiter may contact you for an interview. The interview process is threefold: life story, case interview, and apprenticeship offer. You don't need any preparation for the 45-minute life story interview. All you’ll need to do is communicate your formative past experiences and why you’ve decided now is the right time. In addition, you should expect questions about your impact, trust, self-awareness, readiness, and engagement.
The case study interview is with two Shopify Product Managers. It’s a conversational interview where you must solve a real-world problem. Success means you’ll be sent an offer letter to prepare for the apprenticeship. Apprentices are placed on teams according to their interests, skills, and experiences.
According to Carl Rivera, VP of Product at Shopify, over 3,000 candidates applied to the second cohort of Shopify’s APM program. From that number, Shopify recruited only a tiny portion as the company’s priority is to scale the program per its current capability to manage talent and growth opportunities for the applicants. In addition, Veronica Van, Shopify APM Program lead, noted that Shopify recruited only ten apprentice program managers.
Shopify Apprenticeship Cohort Frequency: How Often is a Cohort Hired?
Shopify recruits candidates for its product management apprenticeship twice a year. This recruitment has previously occurred in January and July of each year. The third cohort launched in September 2022. The application cycle ran for four days, between June 2nd and 6th. For the fourth cohort, applications opened on January 23rd and closed on January 30th.
Yes, Shopify is an excellent company to work for if you care about improving the standard of living of billions of people through commerce. According to employee reviews from Glassdoor, Shopify has a 3.7 out of five-star rating for offering impressive benefits, talented & good people, wonderful culture, a noble mission, a work-life balance, and a holistic compensation package. Sixty-five percent of reviewers agree to recommend Shopify to a friend, and 72% approve of the CEO.
Shopify APM is a 12-month full-time apprenticeship program for aspiring product managers looking to launch careers in leading tech companies like Shopify. The program features a classroom learning experience, peer-to-peer and group mentorships, coaching, and detailed feedback. In addition, apprentice product managers receive monthly compensation, benefits, and perks for working at Shopify.
How do I become a product manager at Shopify with no experience?
To increase your chances of securing a product management apprenticeship at Shopify, you should have some knowledge of product management, as the hiring manager will test your product management knowledge during the case study interview. However, you can build foundational skills in product management by attending a coding bootcamp or taking online product management courses.
The apprentice product manager role at Shopify is very flexible. You clock in by 9:00 am and out by 5:00 pm as an apprentice. In between that time, you can take breaks for personal needs. There are few demands for apprentices. You'll need to shadow the product managers to learn how they perform their tasks. There is no pressure to make technical contributions during meetings. Most of your early tasks will be customer-facing.
To learn more about the Shopify apprentice product manager program, visit the Shopify APM Careers page. This microsite will provide FAQs, apprenticeship interview guidelines, and info session event dates to help you prepare for the next cohort. In addition, the Shopify Engineering Blog is an ideal place to learn more about Shopify’s product features, tech stack, and employees' tasks and stories.
Suppose you want to learn more about Shopify's organizational and employer initiatives and its efforts at addressing systemic issues involving workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion. In that case, you should visit the Shopify DEI page.
You can get updates on Shopify full-time employee and apprentice roles from the Shopify Jobs page. You can also sign up for upcoming Shopify APM news to be notified about the next cohort and application cycles.
If you don’t want to track and monitor the Shopify apprenticeship program for yourself or are looking for support in an apprenticeship application, you can join apprenticeship.io to learn more and get support to land an apprenticeship program.
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