Mastering Developer Experience at Shopify | Eytan Seidman, Director of Product
Plus, 5 reasons why your developers will quit, and how Google sets durable goals for their software engineers.
In an organization as big as Shopify, how can you pioneer exceptional developer experience not only for your team but also for external developers using your product?
This week, we’re joined by Eytan Seidman, Director of Product at Shopify, to unpack Shopify's approach to building elite engineering teams. Eytan highlights how Shopify’s high-context, high-autonomy culture empowers engineers and product managers to innovate and drive impact.
By leveraging a mission-driven culture, Shopify ensures that internal and external developers can contribute effectively to the platform without being bottlenecked back by inefficient processes or developer experience. Tune in this week and discover how to implement the same processes that made Shopify so successful.
“We hire people who are well aligned to that mission and who are really awesome at their craft. So at the core, it's a company for craftspeople, right?
We're really treating people like adults, counting on them to show up every day, do their craft really well, and to come with ideas.”
Episode Highlights:
0:50 What makes engineering and product roles at Shopify special?
3:31 How Shopify onboards new hires to drive impact
9:05 Pioneering developer experience at Shopify
13:28 How Shopify defines success for its platform
17:50 Building high-context, empowered teams
29:35 Leveraging AI and LLMs as a growth opportunity
35:29 Advice for product and engineering leaders thinking about their next career step
The Download
The Download is engineering leadership content we’re reading, watching, and attending that we think you might find valuable.
1. How Google sets durable goals for their engineers
For decades, Google has been considered a company that has set the gold standard for engineering practices. In the recent IEEE newsletter, Google outlines their practices for setting developer goals – but what makes their approach to goal-setting so effective, and how can you apply these principles to your team?
’s recent blog outlines how you can apply this goal-setting framework to drive success for your org.Read: How Google Sets Durable Goals for Their Software Engineers
2. 5 reasons why your best developers will quit - and how can you postpone it
What causes developers to leave a company, and what can you do as a leader to retain top talent? In
, outlined 5 major reasons why people choose to move on from their roles:Unappreciated
Lonely
Bored
Stuck
Apathetic
Learn how you can make your team feel valued through fair compensation and recognition, connected through team bonding, challenged with meaningful tasks, and supported in their career growth.
2024 Software Engineering
Benchmarks Report (Sponsor)
Is your team’s 7-day cycle time good? What about their 150 lines of code in a pull request? Visibility into these metrics isn’t enough; you need to see how you stack up to overall industry performance to define elite performance for your team.
If you want a holistic view of your engineering performance, download LinearB’s 2024 Software Engineering Benchmarks Report. Based on an in-depth analysis of more than 2000 dev teams and 3.6 million PRs, LinearB’s Benchmarks Report offers invaluable insights you can use to build your improvement strategy.
3. Developer Experience: It’s Time to Start Complaining with Gradle
How can developers take back their happiness and their productivity?
When Gradle’s Justin Reock joined us in 2023, we learned about his mission to mitigate the toil, friction, and frustration felt by so many developers today. If you want to dive deeper into improving developer experience for your team, we highly recommend checking out this episode.