Shopify has cut ties with a California-based university through which it provided free tuition and paid internships to students, including those from non-traditional backgrounds. Sources with knowledge of the changes said the move had left students still enrolled in the Dev Degree program concerned about their futures, both academically and at Shopify.

The Dev Degree interns from the Dominican University of California (DU of C) “seem to be victims of the industry changing rapidly,” one source familiar with the program told The Logic. They claimed that Shopify staff working with the interns in the program seemingly don’t know “how to assess, manage or protect these interns in the age of AI.” The Logic is not identifying the source, or others in this story, because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Shopify decided not to take on new interns at the university last year, company spokesperson Alia Le Cam told The Logic, adding that the firm intended to continue supporting existing interns in the program until they graduate in 2027.

Dev Degree, which launched in 2016, partners with universities to cover the costs of a degree and provide work experience. Shopify pays tuition, as well as a salary and other benefits. The firm estimates the financial support it provides to each student to be more than $160,000. The program, which accepts about 10 to 15 interns per school per year, was designed to increase diversity in the field by, among other things, not requiring applicants to have a background in tech.

In addition to DU of C, Shopify has also partnered with Ottawa’s Carleton University and York University in Toronto. The partnership with DU of C was a result of a 2021 deal with Make School, a venture-backed college, that allowed Shopify to offer fully remote internships in the U.S. Make School had partnered with DU of C to provide an accredited degree.

Make School has a complicated history. In 2018, before its DU of C partnership, it was fined by a regulatory body for operating without approval. In 2021, a group of former students—who attended Make School prior to Shopify’s involvement—sued the college over its income-share agreement, an alternative to student loans that lets people commit a percentage of their future salary in lieu of paying tuition. The school shut down shortly after, and DU of C took over the degree program and the Shopify partnership.

In a Slack message sent early last year, Shopify announced to staff, including current interns in the program, that it would not be continuing the partnership with DU of C, according to three sources with knowledge of Shopify’s internal operations.

The wording of the message was vague, said one source, and provided little explanation as to why the change had been made. All three sources said they understood the decision came down to a feeling that DU of C lacked academic rigour compared to the other universities involved in the Dev Degree program. Shopify’s Le Cam did not answer questions about why it closed the DU of C stream nor about the program’s quality of education, but said the company is continuing “to evolve” the program, alongside its other internships. DU of C did not respond to a request for comment.

One former intern compared the DU of C program to a “dumpster fire” and perhaps among the worst decisions they had ever made. They were swayed to attend the college by the Shopify partnership, explaining it’s difficult to get tech internships in the U.S., and the guaranteed work placement was appealing despite DU of C not being especially prestigious. Many of the classes were scheduled to be one to three hours long, they said, but the instructional portion would be about 10 to 20 minutes, after which the professor would give students the remainder of the time to work independently on their tutorials. 

Another former intern had a better experience, and said they were able to move into the tech industry with little to no prior skills and that the program provided them with a good baseline skill set before they felt their learning plateaued. 

Dropping DU of C from the Dev Degree program created panic among remaining interns, two sources said, and fears amongst those enrolled at York and Carleton that their programs would also be cancelled. Those fears escalated in recent months when Shopify parted ways with two of the program’s key co-ordinators: Curtis Norman and Giselle Cardinal. Sources said the duo were laid off. Norman declined to comment, but did not dispute he was laid off. Cardinal did not respond to a request for comment, but confirmed in a LinkedIn post that she had been let go.

Following the announcement that DU of C would no longer be part of the Dev Degree program, those still studying there worried they would be seen as inferior to their York and Carleton peers. 

Those fears have somewhat materialized, according to sources. One of the former interns, for example, claimed a member of Shopify staff walked away from them mid-conversation after hearing which school they had attended.

While there was never a promise of a full-time job upon graduation, it had been widely accepted by Shopify and interns that being converted into a staffer was the goal of the scheme. Previously, that was often what happened. Now, sources claim, some interns involved in the scheme are not being offered full-time roles, while others have been laid off before completing the program.

There are several reasons as to why this might be happening, sources said.

Shopify is working on keeping staffing numbers low, one source said. The firm has regularly laid off staff in small batches since two mass rounds in 2022 and 2023, most recently with a reorganization of its partnerships division and its operations team. The arrival of chief technology officer Mikhail Parakhin in August 2024 has coincided with a number of restructurings, the source said, with many people fearing that they will be pushed out of the company. 

“It’s not a time that rewards nurturing early talent, and having one on your team could actually be a detriment to your survival,” they said, adding that managers at Shopify are incentivized to not offer jobs to interns because they take up senior roles due to how the program is structured, without necessarily having those skills.

Additionally, interns are ranked against full-time staff in internal surveys evaluating performance on projects, but do not get to fill out surveys themselves, the source said. Staff rankings impact their performance reviews and, as a result, incentivize others to rank intern performance as low. 

Shopify has shifted to have an “everyone for themselves” culture, claimed one source, meaning people may be scared of losing their jobs, even to interns.

It’s also possible the company is choosing to focus on other internship programs. While making cuts to Dev Degree, Shopify has rapidly grown the number of engineering interns it has hired in recent years. Le Cam said that Shopify was investing in “early-career technical talent at the largest scale in the company’s history.” In 2024, the company hired just 25 people into such roles, vice-president and head of engineering Farhan Thawar said in an interview with YouTube channel The Pragmatic Engineer. In 2025, it hired 1,000. Thawar said the firm plans to hire another 1,000 interns this year. Shopify has also recently launched an apprenticeship program for designers, and has another one for product managers.

The engineering interns, specifically, can outshine those in the Dev Degree program, one source said, as they’re often further along in their academic or professional careers and have a more traditional tech background. “People have just started looking down on the program altogether,” the source claimed of Dev Degree.

The end of the DU of C partnership “does feel a little bittersweet,” said one former intern of the fact that others won’t be able to benefit from the program as they did. 

Still, they said that they understand Shopify’s decision. “It makes sense that they would want to protect their interests,” the source said, “and make sure that the interns that they are acquiring and developing for full-time work are going through a rigorous academic process.”