Technical Architect, Professional Services

At Shopify, we're making commerce better for everyone — from independent entrepreneurs to global brands. We provide the scalability, reliability, and flexibility merchants need to build, grow, and evolve their businesses. Shopify powers commerce for brands like Allbirds, Gymshark, and Staples. Our Professional Services team works with those brands directly, on paid engagements, to architect and deliver native Shopify experiences that move real numbers: conversion, performance, and developer velocity.

This is where Technical Architects come in. Some of our merchants are migrating to Shopify from legacy enterprise platforms — untangling years of custom logic, integrations, and multi-market complexity. Others are already on Plus and need their storefront rebuilt to perform at a different scale. You'll lead both: the architecture and the hands-on implementation.

A typical engagement might mean replatforming a global brand across a dozen markets without losing a point of conversion, or rebuilding a checkout on Checkout Extensibility ahead of a peak season. You'll work alongside Solution Engineering, Customer Success, Engineering and Product — and because these are billable engagements, you'll help scope the work, set expectations, and own the outcome.

This is an individual contributor role. You'll write code.

What you can expect

• Engagements ranging from short technical spikes to 6 month builds, spanning hands-on delivery through architectural oversight

• A genuinely hands-on role — you'll be in the codebase, not just reviewing other people's work

• A fast-moving environment where requirements shift and ambiguity is normal

• Autonomy to solve complex problems creatively, with mentorship and room to grow from each engagement

• Direct influence on merchant outcomes and on Shopify's roadmap

Key Responsibilities

• Architect and deliver native Shopify storefronts for Plus and enterprise merchants — leading technical discovery, solution design, and hands-on proof-of-concepts across themes, checkout, and app/extension surfaces

• Own the migration path for merchants coming from legacy platforms: assess existing architecture, define the target state, and sequence the work so nothing breaks in flight

• Set the performance bar. Define frontend standards (Core Web Vitals, rendering strategy, asset discipline) and coach merchant and partner teams to hit them

• Make the hard architecture calls and explain them — Liquid vs. Hydrogen/Oxygen, native vs. app, Checkout Extensibility patterns, content modeling with metafields and metaobjects, and multi-market/multi-region setups via Shopify Markets

• Scale your impact beyond the engagement by building reusable reference implementations, accelerators, and internal tooling — Theme App Extensions, Checkout UI Extensions, Functions — so the next team starts further ahead

• Work across the org with Solution and Enterprise Architects, Merchant Success, Product, and Engineering to unblock complexity, surface risk early, and feed what you learn back into the product roadmap

• Communicate with range — deep technical detail with engineers, clear recommendations and tradeoffs with executive stakeholders

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in Shopify Themes and Liquid, including Online Store 2.0 architecture, content schemas, and theme settings

• Strong modern frontend fundamentals: storefront JavaScript, component architecture, advanced CSS, and demonstrable performance optimization work

• Hands-on experience across Shopify's extensibility surfaces — Checkout UI Extensions, Theme App Extensions, Functions, App Bridge — including migration patterns off legacy Scripts

• Strong GraphQL and REST proficiency across the Admin and Storefront APIs, with webhooks and rate-limit-aware patterns

• Content modeling with metafields and metaobjects

• Fluency with Shopify CLI, Git-based workflows, and automated checks (Theme Check, ESLint/TypeScript)

• Demonstrated use of AI tools (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) to ship production code and build internal tooling that speeds up delivery

• Excellent communication with both engineering and executive audiences, and a track record of turning ambiguous merchant goals into clear architectures with measurable outcomes

Nice to have

• Hydrogen/Oxygen experience, with a clear point of view on when headless is actually the right call

• Plus program depth (B2B, Bundles, Subscriptions) and experience migrating legacy surfaces

• Agency, consultancy, or SI background delivering for enterprise merchants

• Familiarity with ERP/OMS/PIM integrations via Admin APIs and webhooks

• Public thought leadership

We're interested in what you can do. If you're excited about this role, please apply even if your experience doesn't line up perfectly.