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: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-shopify-builds-a-high-intensity-culture-farhan-thawer

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Where to find Farhan Thawar:

• X: https://x.com/fnthawar

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fnthawar

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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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: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/463176-you-can-t-connect-the-dots-looking-forward-you-can-only

• Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/

• GitHub: https://github.com/

• Farhan’s “questions to ask” framework: https://x.com/fnthawar/status/1514193402828574721

• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/

• Joe Liemandt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liemandt

• Chamath Palihapitya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamath_Palihapitiya

• Xtreme Labs: https://www.xtremelabs.io

• Parkinson’s law: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-parkinsons-law-6674423

• Pair programming: https://dev.to/documatic/pair-programming-best-practices-and-tools-154j

• Cody Fauser on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codyfauser

• How Shopify builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-shopify-builds-product

• Chaos Monkey: We look at Shopify’s new ‘culture of focus’: