There is a huge pool of exceptional junior engineers

Is Shopify a great company?

Stock below peak in a market giving extremely rich tech valuations. Canadian engineers hardly aspire to work there. Politics of the founders also seem to come up a lot.

This isn’t meant to be an attack but more an observation that it seems to be one of the companies getting killed.

To address the article itself, the argument isn’t juniors ca seniors, but juniors vs AI. Why is a junior worth paying 10,000x more than Claude? And it’s perfectly loyal, perfectly energetic, and can add its learnings to a contributions.md doc.

What makes a company great?

I think by most rational business metrics (top line revenue growth, gross margins, operating margins, cash flow, balance sheet), Shopify in 2025 is a fantastic business that seems to only be getting better?

This is notably different from an analysis of whatever the market price for its equity is or has been. I think that market price is ~40% overvalued today and it’s been much more overvalued than that in the past… but the fundamentals of the business have never been stronger.

In what way is it getting killed?

To force a comparison within the sector, is Amazon not a great company? Market price point aside, it’s arguably more politically charged and less aspirational engineering culture-wise. But I think I’d still call it a great company, same as Shopify.