Farhan Thawar from Shopify

Farhan Thawar is a VP and Head of Engineering at Shopify.


Takeaways
- Why Xtreme Labs Was So Special
- Why Xtreme Labs Did Almost Zero Interviews
- The Role of AI in Engineering
- Pair Programming and Collaboration
- Story Behind Shopify Being One of The First Companies to Use GitHub Co-Pilot
- Why Shopify Uses GitHub Co-Pilot and Cursor
- Why Shopify Doesn't Use Jira or Linear
- AI and Toil Reduction in Software Engineering
- The Evolution of Prompting in Engineering
- Why Tobi Has The Best Prompts
- Vibe Coding
- Shopify's Delete Code Club - Deleting 5M Lines of Code
- Maintaining a Hacky Culture in a Large Organization
- The Meaning of Elegance in Engineering


Chapters
00:00 The Genesis of Extreme Labs
02:59 Building a Unique Company Culture
06:10 Hiring and Retaining Talent
08:53 Innovative Perks and Employee Engagement
11:53 The Role of AI in Engineering
14:50 Pair Programming and Collaboration
18:04 Navigating Tools and Technologies
21:00 The Future of Engineering with AI
26:57 AI and Toil Reduction in Software Engineering
29:48 The Evolution of Prompting in Engineering
34:23 Shopify's Delete Code Club: A Culture of Efficiency
38:08 Maintaining a Hacky Culture in a Large Organization
46:39 The Meaning of Elegance in Engineering
48:34 Finding Energy in Hard Times


Keywords
Xtreme Labs, company culture, hiring, employee engagement, AI in engineering, pair programming, innovative perks, technology tools, Shopify, talent retention, AI, software engineering, toil reduction, prompting, Delete Code Club, hack culture, elegance, entrepreneurship, Shopify