About our company
The first Shopify store was our own.
More than a decade ago we started an online store to sell snowboard equipment directly to those who loved the sport as much as us.
We could have listed our products on a number of marketplaces, but we wanted to own our brand and build relationships with our customers, along with selling our goods. Such a tool didn’t exist, so we built it for ourselves. We soon realized a number of other stores were in need of a hassle-free platform to build their retail business, and Shopify was born. Since then, it's been our mission to make commerce better for everyone.
Our mission is to make commerce better for everyone, so our millions of merchants can focus on what they do best: building and selling their products. Today, our merchants use our platform to manage every aspect of their business — from products to orders to customers, selling online, in retail stores, and on the go.
The opportunity to shape the future of independent business ownership is in our hands.
Shopify is Digital by Design, our way of saying that we have a digital-first way of thinking, working, collaborating, and making decisions. Digital by Design is a commitment to a people-first approach to work, an investment in the infrastructure for the future, and a culmination of our years of experience nurturing happy and healthy remote-first teams. Our employees have the power to design their own schedules — balancing work with family time, hobbies, and staying healthy.
Digital by Design
Shopify is Digital by Design, which means a digital-first way of thinking, working, collaborating, and making decisions. Digital by Design is a commitment to a people-first approach to work, an investment in the infrastructure for the future, and a culmination of our years of experience nurturing happy and healthy remote-first teams. Our employees have the power to design their own schedules — balancing work with family time, hobbies, and staying healthy.
Digital by Design programs and Initiatives:
It starts with you
The mental, emotional, and physical well being of our people is paramount. That’s why our Digital by Design environment enables you to take time to recharge in the ways that make sense for you. We don’t prescribe solutions. We create space and opportunity for people to make the choices that are best for their unique circumstances.
The right tech? Check.
Shopify curates the best technology to elevate the remote-first work experience for our people. We provide you with customized tools and technology to ensure you have the best tools possible to build the best products, and stay connected in our digital-first environment.
Work abroad for up to 90 days per year
We encourage our people to expand their horizons in all ways, and this includes exploring different corners of the globe. Our Destination90 program gives you the flexibility and freedom to take on new adventures and gain a fresh perspective to do your best work.
Meet your team when, and where, it matters
Coming together with your team is essential to making life at Shopify the most fun and most productive experience it can be. Periodically, Shopifolk attend Bursts, where you’ll meet your team for a thoughtfully crafted, in-person experience to create, build, and learn together.
Diversity Programs & Initiatives
Diversity and belonging is a core part of our mission. To build products that make commerce better for everyone, we need to remove barriers and include people across all dimensions of diversity worldwide. We take action to ensure that our merchants and employees feel included in and driven by our mission. We know that creating a diverse and inclusive organization where merchants and employees feel a sense of belonging is a shared responsibility. We take this responsibility seriously.
We created our global diversity and belonging strategy after consulting 250 employees in 13 countries around the world, making us one of the first technology companies to build a strategy with global perspectives from the outset. This strategy will make our work both globally relevant and locally responsive, and is the basis upon which we develop annual plans, launch programming, and track progress worldwide. Our strategy has the following pillars under which our work is organized:
- Fostering Understanding (research and learning for employees and merchants)
- Reflecting the World (hiring, employee lifecycle and merchant attraction and retention)
- Creating Community (for employees and merchants)
- Sharing our stories (for employees and merchants)
Some examples of this in practice include:
- Employee resource groups: Engaging over 1,800 Shopifolk globally, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) at Shopify have grown to represent employees who are Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, and women. ERGs act as a voice for employees, focusing on professional development, talent acquisition, as well as employee engagement and retention.
- Belonging connectors program: One of the ways we foster belonging at Shopify is through our Belonging Connectors Program, a collective of trained volunteers who help us build a future of commerce that includes more voices. Connectors work on championing DEI initiatives throughout the company and work to amplify and support the Diversity and Belonging team.
- Real Talk: Tackling subjects like mental health and isolation, the diaspora experience, and the crisis of anti-Black racism is the goal of Real Talk. Shopify employees from underrepresented groups and allies share a better understanding of the issues, within a safe and respectful environment.
Learning offerings: Our learning offerings are not just about compliance, but seek to build a workplace where all employees feel included, valued and heard. The focus on anti-bias, empathy, allyship, discrimination, and microaggressions, takes it beyond traditional corporate unconscious bias training and creates learning offerings that allow people to identify and mitigate all forms of bias. It is not just about what not to do, but how to do things in a way that is meaningful, inclusive, and in line with our mission and our aspirations of being a global company.
