Farhan Thawar
@fnthawar
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FOLLOWS YOU. VP & Head of Eng @Shopify - Helpful (Acquired), Pivotal, Xtreme (Acquired), Microsoft, Trilogy, Waterloo. Everything you know is wrong! 🇨🇦/acc
Toronto, Ontario
Joined April 2008
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Pinned Tweet
How it started vs how it’s going
Fun to follow up
@satyanadella
@ashtom
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Read non-fiction to raise your floor. Read fiction to raise your ceiling.
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Excited to share that React Native is the Future of Mobile at
@Shopify
😎
- Our in production
@reactnative
apps have 95%+ code shared between iOS and Android 🤯
- We're hiring native mobile and web developers
@ShopifyEng
- We're contributing back to OSS👊🏽
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Yup
@Shopify
is rolling out all new M1 Pro’s to employees and you can keep your old laptop for yourself
Act like an owner 👊🏽
Step 1. Someone mentions how it'd be lovely to have M1 Mac as our new work laptops in our developers slack channel.
Step 2. SEVEN minutes later, there is an email in our inbox. Not only are we getting M1s, but we can keep our existing Macs because why not do the simple thing?
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🤯
@Shopify
received 7,000 applicants for 100 intern spots this summer across UX, Product, Engineering
I 💚💚💚 interns (🔑 many become full-times!)
Smart capable folks, bringing energy and new ideas to work
Don't give them *intern* projects 🙅🏽♂️, given them real work 🚀
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My first job was a paper route 📰, but it's never too early to start your own business
Sign your 9-12yr kids up for a free Business Starter Kit from
@Shopify
with activities and and exercises to help design their first biz
#ShopifyKids
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We're hiring 1k engineering interns in 2025 for
@ShopifyEng
🚀
* You'll learn a ton, and we'll learn a lot from you also
* IRL program in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal — ~3x per week
* if you are an AI centaur (LLM + human) — this is made for you
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the mayor of miami is a fucking GOAT. look at this billboard he put up in san Francisco!
.... lets talk
@MiamiMayor
@FrancisSuarez
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You've spoken so many things into existence in the past. You can do it again
—
@idillionaire
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Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational
—
@ScottAdamsSays
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.
@ShopifyEng
+
@rubyonrails
= 💚
Fun is underrated
@rafaelfranca
@tenderlove
@OngMaple
@Love2Code
@aellispierce
@eileencodes
@paracycle
@bettymakes
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Feels like it's been a while since we've done a
@reactnative
update on what's going on with
@ShopifyEng
+ mobile
A 🧵
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I'm SO proud to champion this in downtown Toronto
We're 🚀ing a 3-month paid program to help you re-enter software engineering at a senior level if you've been out for a few years (maybe helping 👵👴 or 👶)
Apply by Sept 13th!
@Shopify
@ShopifyEng
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In 2004
@INSEAD
declined to admit me into their MBA program (I have this on my failure resume)
So it is fitting that I now address
@INSEADAlumni
on Tuesday 😈
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Similar.. I wrote my principles down
@adammcnamara
Talk to my kids like they are adults. Answer every question. When I run out of answers, teach them how I’d go research. Read them non fiction books that are about things you find exciting.
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Just because you’re serious, doesn’t mean you have to be miserable
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Me at 18 vs now
I surprisingly have few pictures of me with my computers 😅
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"The fact that Shopify is written in Ruby helped a lot to overtake Java in June 2020 as the third-most used language on the web..No other hosting company has added more websites in 2020." 👏🏽
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I 💚 folks early in their careers so I'm excited to announce applications for
#DevDegree
are now open!
- work
@Shopify
& earn a CS degree with 4,500 hours of experience
- we’ll pay for your degree and team placements (~$160K over 4 years)
Apply Now:
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Nothing is natural talent for me
I have to fight introversion, imposter syndrome, and my own mind daily
Bring it
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“Our uncles and aunties have PhDs in science, but that’s no match for WhatsApp”
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I thought 🇨🇦 angels were supposed to be slow 😇
Pitch / interviews are a poor proxy for performance
You don’t need more info / due diligence:
* when you’ve known the impressive founder for over a decade
* when your goal is to learn
* when you are building a portfolio
🚀🚀
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A good reminder of the entrepreneurial spirit from
@VaxHuntersCan
— Helping eligible 🇨🇦 find vaccines
Instead of complaining -> they built something useful
There's always a way to be useful 👏🏽🙌🏽
Congrats
@andryou
@joshkalpin
@sabanero_pepper
@jclodman
and lmk how we can help
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Gotta disagree with
@chamath
from last week's
@theallinpod
@google
Meet >>>
@Zoom
I use both regularly and unfortunately Zoom has gotten really clunky, has naive recording functionality and requires a separate app, install, updates etc
Meet on the other hand now has a
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Congrats
@Airbnb
+ lots of overlap with how we think about this for
@Shopify
✅ live *anywhere* for 90 days
✅ work remotely
✅ meetup IRL regularly
✅ rethink geo compensation
✅ 2 release events per year
❌ work from office
Today, we’re announcing that Airbnb employees can live and work anywhere.
Our design for working at Airbnb has 5 key features:
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This is worth watching from
@theallinpod
this week
@friedberg
@Jason
@chamath
and
@DavidSacks
show that it is possible to hold multiple viewpoints simultaneously while talking about a very tough subject and not taking sides
If you can't watch the entire clip, at least watch the
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This is 💯 from
@chamath
on
@UWaterloo
and
@HireWaterloo
's coop program
4 months of school then 4 months of work not only allows you to *mostly* pay your own way, it gives you real experience interviewing and working
My work life started with very little debt compared to peers
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Come to Canada 🇨🇦
I will personally help you
I came to the US and instead of taking American jobs, I helped create jobs and billions of dollars in value. Using the virus to stop the Green Card process will hurt companies like
@duolingo
. We’ll have to open offices and move jobs outside the US because of this. 🙄
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My path in engineering:
- pay cut @ 27: Trilogy to Celestica
- pay cut @ 34: Microsoft to Acheivers
- pay cut @ 35: Acheivers to Xtreme Labs
- $0 salary @ 41: Left Pivotal to start Helpful
The way is not linear 📊
My path as a PM:
- bus boy @ 14 ($7.25/hr)
- food expo @ 15 ($12/hr)
- lab asst @ 20 ($1k/mo)
- arduino junkie @ 21 ($300/wk)
- failed founder @ 22 ($0)
- startup first hire @ 23 ($79k)
- first PM job @ 25 ($125k)
- Square PM @ 27 ($120k)
- other stuff at Square @ 30
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“But there's a new global winner: Canada, and particularly Toronto.”
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Also what we do
@Shopify
We work remote, but we’ve converted our key real estate into “ports” — places where we get together
These meetups are called “bursts” — project kickoffs, team get togethers, deliberate meetups 👊🏽
IRL is still an important part of work 💚
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Our
@reactnative
performance library is now public!
Feedback welcome 🤗
We're also open sourcing our performance library to ensure you can profile your
@reactnative
applications and some of our working group has started to dive into this
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I 💚 interns and early talent — we learn so much from them
@Shopify
intern stats
* ~450 interns a year from all years — & growing
* over 100+ interns convert to full-times per year
* 500+ Shopifolk who were previous interns
* looking to expand 🌎 soon
Happy National Intern Day!
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Never thought I’d be RTing this, but it seems like this guy wants to build shit and power entrepreneurs and small businesses in 🇨🇦
Watch the last minute or so for a reasonable plan
Open to hearing from others
Conservatives oppose the job-killing Trudeau tax hike on homes, health care, farmers, and small businesses.
Here's why.
Help me fight back:
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I’ve been laid off twice and been on a PIP (performance improvement plan) as well
Hopefully this conversation is helpful for others
First Name Basis Podcast-
@fnthawar
and I talking about how we bounced back from layoffs
#RightTheFuture
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Congrats to all the winners* 🥳 via
@GergelyOrosz
's excellent newsletter:
@ShopifyEng
deleted 3 million lines of code last year to pursue our goal of NOT being on this list in the future 😉
We'll keep sharing our code cleanups:
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Things I don’t spend time on
* sounding smart
* worrying
* 24hr news cycle
* finding close parking
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Nbd, just doing a full product roadmap review in VR — 12 hours over 2 days
I assume folks are doing experiments like this to learn:
* what works
* what doesn’t work
* when to get together IRL
* when a 2D or 3D telepresence meetup is more effective
Right?
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From Jun 26-28, we spent 3 days IRL hacking at
@Shopify
’s 36th Hack Days
6000+ ppl prototyping, building, and experimenting on 1,000+ projects
Sometimes, hacking leads to things that ship like Shopify POS or our move to the cloud. Other times, hacking helps us discover
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In Canada we take French until Grade 12
Shopify goes all in on React Native for mobile development 3 years after Airbnb dropped it like 3rd-grade French
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I'm discussing “The Women Powering Shopify’s Technology” with
@cathy_polinsky
,
@Sheridine17
,
@pantopicon
,
@alspee
,
@a_hilal
, Lulu Sheng, and
@ShopifyEng
. Wednesday, Mar 10 at 7:00 PM EST on
@joinclubhouse
. Join us!
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If you were an 18 year old again, and had to choose from the following, what would you choose
1.
@Harvard
2. 1:1 tutoring
3.
@peterthiel
fellowship
4. Go to work
5.
@UWaterloo
coop
@pmarca
@bhorowitz
weigh in
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Many companies think paying the most gets them the best people. They are wrong. Companies that teach the most get the best people
—
@henrysward
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Not sure about others, but the combination of daylight savings + Toronto weather is really kicking my ass right now
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Probably the question I get asked most
How do you hire a VP Eng?
👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
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Tomorrow, Wed at 5pm ET, we'll be trying something different
@ShopifyEng
Live on
@TwitterSpaces
🤓, I'll be chatting with
@joepym
@ClemSquared
@1World1Sound
for a technical deep dive into how we moved from many apps to a monolith
Everyone can join, and we'll tweet when we start
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Built with
@reactnative
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
We launched Shopify Ping on Android this morning, giving merchants the possibility of engaging with buyers via chat.
Proud of the team that built this! 🚀
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You don’t stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing
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True story
@tobi
and
@codyfauser
used to pair program for an hour at a time on key parts of early
@ShopifyEng
— If they didn’t finish in an hour they would DELETE that code and start over 😬
The constant pairing and rewriting ended up producing much more elegant code
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Andy Warhol was wrong. In the future, we wouldn’t all be famous for fifteen minutes; we’d be famous 24/7 to fifteen people
—
@antoniogm
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I didn’t like my answer to this so I distilled my thoughts into to 3 areas
Parents - when you think of teaching your kids "lifeskills", what's on your list?
- financial literacy
- negotiation/debate
- care skills (eg. childcare/eldercare)
- empathy
- communication/presentation
- time mgmt
- home/bike care
- gardening
- fixing things
- cleaning/chores
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In
@ShopifyEng
we focus on building things as infrastructure
1. Imagine your dream environment for building something
2. Build your features on top of this ideal
3. Now implement this environment 🔑
This means we care deeply about HOW something is built, not just WHAT we build
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It's getting weird to not use AI tools as an engineer. Weird as in: "If you are not using AI tools, why not?"
We are basically tool builders and tool users. AI is a powerful tool we must learn to wield, lest you get left behind by those who know how to use it
It started with AI
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