Digital by Design
Combine location freedom with deliberate in-person team bursts
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 97%
Digital by Design removes permanent office attendance as the centre of work while preserving scheduled in-person collaboration. Routine systems must work digitally so people can live and work in different locations, widening the talent pool. Existing offices or other venues become locations for focused team bursts rather than daily attendance. Shopify requires teams to spend time together at least quarterly, with some meeting more often. Finkelstein says newly forming teams particularly need in-person time, while teams with a stronger accumulated 'trust battery' may need it less frequently. The mechanism pairs location flexibility with a minimum connection cadence, then adjusts that cadence to team health and formation stage. He presents it as an evolving model, not a universally solved formula.
Origin
Finkelstein says Shopify developed Digital by Design after moving from office-centric work during the pandemic and deciding that neither permanent office attendance nor fully remote work fit its needs.
Core principles
- 01Do not make a permanent office the centre of work
- 02Location freedom expands the available talent pool
- 03In-person time remains necessary for trust and connection
- 04Newly formed teams may need more frequent contact
- 05The model should evolve from observed results
How to run it
- 1
Make routine work digital
Design communication, decisions, and delivery so normal work does not depend on being in one office. This enables hiring and living across locations.
Watch out Calling a team remote does not by itself make its practices digitally effective.
- 2
Create burst locations
Provide offices, venues, or organized gatherings where teams can work together in person for focused periods. Treat these as collaboration infrastructure rather than daily attendance centres.
- 3
Set a minimum cadence
Require teams to spend time together in person on a defined schedule. Make the expectation explicit so it does not depend entirely on individual manager preference.
Pro tip Shopify's stated floor in the interview was once per quarter.
Watch out Travel requirements can affect people differently and need practical support.
- 4
Adjust for trust and formation
Bring newly formed teams together more frequently, then adapt as relationships and working trust develop. Use team outcomes rather than ideology to guide changes.
In the wild
Shopify stopped making office location a condition of most work, allowing senior leaders and other employees to live in different places. It retained former offices as 'bursting locations' and required teams to meet in person at least once a quarter, with some teams gathering more often.
→ The company combined wider location choice with a formal expectation of periodic co-location.
Common mistakes
Treating remote work as zero contact
Finkelstein explicitly says fully remote work does not work for Shopify and that teams need some in-person time.
Assuming one cadence fits every team
A new team and a mature high-trust team may need different amounts of in-person contact.
Is it for you?
Best for
Distributed knowledge-work organizations that can perform routine work online but still benefit from periodic co-location.
Not ideal for
Roles requiring continuous physical presence or teams unable to fund and support equitable travel.
From the transcript
“we sort of have this model which we refer to as digital by Design”
“you must spend time together with your team in person at least once a quarter”
From the episode
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