How Shopify builds a high-intensity culture | Farhan Thawar (VP and Head of Eng)

Farhan Thawar is the head of engineering at Shopify, where he oversees more than 1,000 engineers and a platform that powers over 10% of all U.S. e-commerce. Before Shopify, he was VP of engineering at Pivotal Labs and Xtreme Labs, and co-founder of Helpful.com. In our conversation, Farhan shares:

• Why choosing the harder path leads to better outcomes

• How to create intensity within your org (without burnout)

• Why every company should be embracing pair programming

• How he hires without interviewing

• How he built the world’s largest internship program

• His mission to create a “crafter’s paradise” for engineers

• Much more

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Find the transcript at: www.lennysnewsletter.com

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Where to find Farhan Thawar:

• X: x.com

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: twitter.com

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Farhan’s background

(05:38) Choosing the hard path

(09:37) Getting comfortable with looking dumb

(13:20) Lessons from working with visionaries

(19:19) Creating intensity in organizations

(22:06) The power of pair programming

(29:18) Shopify’s culture of intensity

(37:18) Meeting Armageddon: revolutionizing company meetings

(39:46) Reducing distractions

(41:10) Deleting 1M+ lines of code

(49:05) Three buckets of building

(57:45) Remote work and trust battery

(01:00:29) Finding stability in uncomfortable times

(01:03:14) Hiring philosophy

(01:11:41) Internship programs and co-op systems

(01:15:32) Lessons from managing 120 direct reports

(01:20:40) Failure corner

(01:27:46) Lightning round and closing thoughts

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Referenced:

• The Steve Jobs quote about connecting dots: www.goodreads.com

• Shopify: www.shopify.com

• GitHub: github.com

• Farhan’s “questions to ask” framework: x.com

• Palantir: www.palantir.com

• Joe Liemandt: www.linkedin.com

• Chamath Palihapitya: en.wikipedia.org

• Xtreme Labs: www.xtremelabs.io

• Parkinson’s law: www.verywellmind.com

• Pair programming: dev.to

• Cody Fauser on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

• How Shopify builds product: www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Chaos Monkey: We look at Shopify’s new ‘culture of focus’: www.siliconrepublic.com

• Empowering devs with AI: How Shopify made GitHub Copilot core to its culture: www.youtube.com

• Tobi Lütke of Shopify: Powering a Team with a ‘Trust Battery’: www.nytimes.com

• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Stop Being Deceived by Interviews When You’re Hiring: www.forbes.com

• Shopify’s made the Life Story a major part of their interview: news.ycombinator.com

• Internships at Shopify: internships.shopify.com

• Nick Adams on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

• React Native: reactnative.dev

• Swift: www.swift.org

• Acquired podcast: The Mark Zuckerberg interview: www.acquired.fm

• The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager: review.firstround.com

• Airbnb’s Vlad Loktev on embracing chaos, inquiry over advocacy, poking the bear, and “impact, impact, impact” (Partner at Index Ventures, Airbnb GM/VP Product): www.lennysnewsletter.com

• The Secret to a Great Planning Process—Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite: review.firstround.com

• How to do great work: www.paulgraham.com

• Challengers on Prime: www.amazon.com

• Halt and Catch Fire on Prime: www.amazon.com

• Meta Ray-Bans: www.meta.com

• Making Meta | Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth (CTO): www.lennysnewsletter.com

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Recommended books:

• The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds: www.amazon.com

• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World: www.amazon.com

• Manna: Two Visions of Humanity’s Future: www.amazon.com

• Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street: www.amazon.com

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Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.