Shopify has cut ties with Dominican University of California in its Dev Degree program (which provides free tuition, paid internships, and over $160K in financial support per student through partner universities including Carleton and York in Canada), with the company deciding last year not to take on new interns at the university but committing to continue supporting existing interns until they graduate in 2027. Sources told The Logic the decision came down to perceived lack of academic rigour at DU of C compared to other Dev Degree universities, with current interns reportedly facing reduced full-time job conversion rates and some being laid off before completing the program, against a backdrop of broader Shopify culture concerns including the arrival of CTO Mikhail Parakhin in August 2024 and multiple restructurings. The cut comes as Shopify is dramatically expanding its overall engineering internship hiring, growing from 25 interns in 2024 to 1,000 in 2025 with plans to hire another 1,000 in 2026, alongside new apprenticeship programs for designers and product managers.
