how is it to work @ canonical?
Posted by Glass_Drama8101@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 128 comments
I've seen quite a few posts that recruitment process at canonical is quite hell [1, 2] but I wonder if anyone recently actually went through it and is it worth it? Or some current Canonical employees are really happy with their posting and the pain of going through that interview process (essays about being great in Math in High School...) is offset by benefits at the end of the path?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/tkc348/my_interview_process_experience_with_canonical/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/comments/15kj845/canonical_the_recruitment_process_really_is_that/
ChumpyCarvings@reddit
Do they ever take a chance on new, low to mid skill people with enthusiasm?
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
Only if they did good in high school lol...
I landed new job already at company that had respectful process and I deeply enjoy it. Canonical failed me on this IQ test (Thomas something). Apparently I am too stupid for the as I did not compare pictures fast enough. I guess I should return my PhD diploma now hahaha :D
ViewBasic4834@reddit
is each round eliminative how much time do they take to respond after written assesment. all aspects of IQ should be fast is it so?
Fit-Finger-2422@reddit
I went through the process but was rejected in the middle. Amazon and RedHat both accepted me. The feeling during the rec process was much better at the latter two companies.
Can't speak about how it is to work there though.
ViewBasic4834@reddit
is each round eliminative how much time do they take to respond after written assesment
peetabear@reddit
I went through their interview process once. They quite literally have a questionnaire basically asking what you were like in high school but it was literally 10x more questions than what I normally have to do for a company.
After that, the interview process was okay with 4 stages: get to know, interest in a particular product, technical then motivation with each stage being an hr each. I didn't make it. I guess I wasn't motivated enough but I could also tell my technical interviewer wasn't enthusiastic. I could also feel some tension as I mentioned my aforementioned technical interviewer's name to the other interviewers (since they actually asked what stage I was in).
I would say the company environment from an external perspective is good in some areas, toxic in some areas where you can see onGlassdoor micromanaging and office politics plays a big factor which isn't too far fetched as companies typically are. Don't get me wrong, some of the products they have are quite impressive, with very interesting features. Despite that I don't think I can get onboard with that work culture. They did emphasize that the company pays for accommodation for a quarterly or half yearly (can't remember) meet up for iteration planning.
Overall, if you're passionate about their technology then it will be worth the hassle going through all that interview hell.
ViewBasic4834@reddit
is each round is eliminative after written assesment and IQ assessment how much time they take to revert back?
InterestingVladimir@reddit
For anyone curious here is a canonical job. It's as insane as described
https://boards.greenhouse.io/canonicaljobs/jobs/5610487
Fred2620@reddit
And also for anyone curious, here is what the written interview looks like, all 44 questions... I had applied for a software engineering management position, and ended up writing a 19 pages document for that written interview (I was desperate... I only realized too late just how absurd the process was). I saved the entire document in case they would have repeat questions for other positions. I was glad I did, because I was invited to another written interview a couple of weeks later which only had 32 questions, most of them being a repeat. That's how I still have the verbatim of the questions:
netean@reddit
To answer these questions will take someone hours. In my mind that is a huge ask for a company at the initial stages of an interview process. (also someone has to read all that as well and that is a serious time commitment to expect of your hiring staff!)
I can't help thinking that they are just wasting a huge amount of time in this process that could be better spent elsewhere.
lilelliot@reddit
I don't think they have hiring staff (or at least not many). For the role I'm interviewing for now -- which is a business role, not technical -- the first interviewer (who would be reporting to me) told me she was the one who received my application + written interview for feedback.
witchhunter0@reddit
Thank you for this!
Some of these questions sounds like: I don't know , please tell me how?
kittenkamala@reddit
A colleague/friend of mine currently works there. He is quite happy so far after 1.5 years. Treated well, valued, paid well, learning a lot, lots of opportunity. The interview process was definitely tedious but thats extremely common w tech companies. I’ve gone through 6-8 interview, 6 month recruitment processes myself multiple times at other orgs.
miguel-styx@reddit
How did he go through all that lengthy forms?
lilelliot@reddit
Fwiw, I provided what I thought were pretty reasonably answers. I spent more time on the questions about Canonical market positioning and strategy and less time on the questions that lent themselves to short answers. I wrote a couple pages about my background and education/history. It totaled about 5200 words across 13.5 pages. It seemed like a wild request at the time, but once you get into it -- assuming you actually are interested in the job -- it creates a mode where you're forced to think through several aspects of work & life & leadership that you might not otherwise, and certainly wouldn't have time for in a typical 45min live interview.
Also, their interviews are 1hr by default rather than 45min, which is far more common in tech.
Mindless-Thing-2839@reddit
Hi, im in the process of the application. I’d love to connect and would really appreciate any guidance or advice you could share
miguel-styx@reddit
Holy shit, that's insane. Would that be okay if I connect with you? A little guidance would help.
lilelliot@reddit
Sure, DM me and I'm happy to connect via email/phone/whatever.
S1h6r0e5y@reddit
Hi, I am currently navigating the interview process at canonical. It would be of great value to get to connect with you and know more about the process. Thanks!
raisi96@reddit
I'm interested in applying. I talked to one of Canonical's employees yesterday – He used to be a Microsoft intern prior to joining Canonical – and he seemed to have a positive experience so far (almost 2 years) . His experience was exactly similar to your friend's, the only negative comments he gave were all on the interview process, he applied and went through the entire process 3 times before landing a job at Canonical.
Independent-Sock7312@reddit
I've worked at canonical several years until 3 months ago.
It was.... meh
I'm a big linux fanboy and was SUPER happy about getting hired there (to work on the kernel specifically). There were some bad things from the start and it seems to have gotten worse especially with their attempts at going IPO.
The work from home was good and the salary was just OK (worse than the industry average). You need to travel 2-4 times a year which was ok by me but some hate it (others love it). Got to see some nice cities.
The interview process is horrendous and we all disagreed with it (including managers). I think the pressure to interview that way comes from Shuttleworth
There is definitely some toxicity there especially with the older crowd and especially with the low-level/kernel guys who seem to still be living with the 90s kernel-developet attitude (including cussing and f-bombs etc.)
The recent push to expand quickly has definitely lowered the quality of employees, especially managers now being hired with not only non-technical experience but many of them are not even linux or open-source enthusiasts, essentially just corporate drones. This is why I left.
The amount of turnover there is a bit insane. I must have hired 15 people for the team over the years and almost none of them lasted more than 2 years.
Overall I rate working there as a 6/10. Ok culture ok money, good name good experience. Definitely worse than I expected since it seemed like a dream-job to me at first.
If you have specific questions I can try to answer.
RealAbd121@reddit
>Overall I rate working there as a 6/10. Ok culture ok money, good name good experience. Definitely worse than I expected since it seemed like a dream-job to me at first.
is it worth bothering with for experiance/name of having working for such a global company? (don't live in the west so things like "just apply to faang instead" don't apply)
marcuskng@reddit
What's the Ubuntu Core standing? Seems a bit niche and may be prone to be an unsuccessful endeavor. Wondering about internal views on the project as being taken seriously?
marcuskng@reddit
What's the Ubuntu Core standing? Seems a bit niche and may be prone to be an unsuccessful endeavor. Wondering about internal views on the project as being taken seriously?
mr-stress@reddit
I was in the kernel team for a long time, and there was always a shed load of pressure just because of CVEs, bug fixes, very tight release schedules and lots of deep issues to debug and fix in very short windows. Given the pressure and insane expectations, long hours and complexity there were days where folk expressed the situation with cussing. Its hard not to get a kernel out the door with important fixes that are not going to regression millions of systems in a timely manner without some form of pressure getting to folk occasionally.
FlukyS@reddit
A thing you will learn fairly quickly is the recruitment process is often a reflection of the health of a company internally management wise. Bad recruitment for a long period of time and you will have bad throughout your company. In terms of how that affects people in their day to day depends on your level, you as a junior will want someone who teaches well so it's rolling a dice if you just land in the place that will give you that. I'd be steering clear.
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
I'd be looking for mid / senior level for Python / Kubernetes posting, but yeah, all together good points... Though I more care now about day2day work, overall workload, work/life balance, and how stressed / relaxed each day is...
netean@reddit
the fact that seem to have nearly permanent job openings should also be a red flag. Any company that is always hiring is either always firing or struggling to retain people.
NoEnvironment1734@reddit
I read in a different post that just last year, it was a 13 step interview process and during those interviews, they kept asking about highschool.
They were really keen about your high school.
It also took about 80 days in total...not counting the days you have to wait for them to get back to you.
I also read that they won't give you a laptop. You have to buy your own and install ubuntu in it.
lilelliot@reddit
I'm in the loop right now and have had two different experiences (I applied for two roles). For the first one, I got a response email immediately from the hiring lead and a request to complete their written interview, and then their aptitude test. Then silence.
While waiting, they listed a second role I'd be equally good at so I applied. I heard back from the hiring lead after a day or two with positive response and a request to do the written interview, which overlapped with the previous one about 35% (the education pieces, mostly). After submitting that, two days later I got another email from the hiring lead asking me for interview availability slots and by the next day I had three interviews scheduled the same week (this week).
What I find weirdest about the process is that there's no recruiter involved, which means no one to ask questions about the role, the company, the comp, or anything else until after you get through interviews.
Coded_Kaa@reddit
How far boss? I hope it went well
lilelliot@reddit
I have completed 6 interviews (3 early stage, 1 talent scientist, 2 late stage, which included the hiring lead and hiring manager), and have 1 more late stage interview to go, on the calendar for next week. The hiring lead was the one who finally told me the rough comp expectations. In general, it hasn't been an unpleasant experience but it's definitely unique and I'm not sold on the value of the aptitude & psychometric tests, or their intentional decision not to have a traditional recruiting organization to handle candidates at the top of the funnel. That said, the people I've interviewed with have all been passionate about their work and love it at Canonical, so there's that.
FacingMyBook@reddit
any updates?
lilelliot@reddit
I got a rejection about a week ago with no explanation. Honestly, I feel like I dodged a bullet, and will not apply for anything with them again in the future. Even from talking with several interviewers, it seems like the place is a cult of personality around Mark Shuttleworth, and a lot of teams -- especially on the tech side -- are consistently unhappy.
Coded_Kaa@reddit
Wow, I'm rooting and praying for you, you'll get the position 🙏💯💯
metux-its@reddit
Fun fact: they're also looking for devs for Mir. Smells like they're lacking people who wanna deal with that dead horse.
dobbelj@reddit
Mir is now a wayland compositor, and is still being used on IoT devices.
metux-its@reddit
Yes thats also a funny aspect. No idea whether it still supports the native Mir protocols.
netean@reddit
I thought Mir was long dead and buried?
metux-its@reddit
Me too. Seems they're still working on this - and lacking people willing to do so.
netean@reddit
not surprised that no one is willing to work on Mir, even at its height it was still very niche. Now though, why would you work on Mir when you can work on Wayland?
metux-its@reddit
For enough coins I'd maybe do it. Obviously far over my usual rate.
arwinda@reddit
Or the company is expanding.
Keep in mind that some people still like to change jobs every 2-3 years, to gain different experiences (and a higher salary).
To turn your argument around: a company which never hires has the same people all the time, and a vague or not existing learning process. Not sure how that is better, however these companies will not show up on your radar because, well, they don't hire.
FlukyS@reddit
They have had a few jobs that are always advertised and they are single person positions. They just aren't filling it.
WizeAdz@reddit
I’ve applied for some of those jobs because I have a perfect background for them IRL.
I never got to the “have a human read your resume” stage, and so was summarily rejected.
netean@reddit
leaving a job after 2-3 years is fine, but a "good" company will want to keep you, your platform knowledge and experience within the company. But... I would also argue that if your support team are moving on after 2-3 years you are either hiring the wrong kind of support or not giving them enough to keep them challenged and moving forward with their knowledge.
arwinda@reddit
Sure, at what cost? And if someone wants to leave because career choice, what incentives can you give this employee to stay.
You can raise salaries, but then you have huge discrepancies in the salary range between employees who stay and employees who want to leave. Leading to situations where the others might also resign just to get more money.
That's not always something you know beforehand, and they won't tell you in an interview. And you don't always have all the challenges, or can't create them. We heavily use K8s, but one infrastructure guy left for a hosting provider citing "more bare metal work, closer to hardware" as reason. Can't really do anything about it.
FlukyS@reddit
The higher up you go the more affected by bad management you would be. There are 1000 devs applying for the regular dev roles so they wouldn't be so bad but given their exclusionary process of recruitment the manager level stuff would be a lot more rocky.
InterestingVladimir@reddit
Very true. I opened Canonical recruiment page out of curiosity and it was kind of insane.
They ask things like what were your high school math and English (or your mother language) national grades. The job descriptions said they were looking for a junior dev for some random backend/frontend for their internal products or something.
I bet anyone that passes their "tests" will have better pay and work environment at other places. I personally dodge bs like that
thephotoman@reddit
Anybody asking about high school in a job that requires a college degree is desperately out of touch.
Who cares what happened in high school? It's long enough ago to not be relevant if you required a college degree. And lots of kids struggle in high school due to the pressure cooker nature of high school. But once they're able to choose what they study, they do well. Sometimes, home life was shitty enough when they were in high school as their parents grew apart and maybe a marriage collapsed, but once they were away from that and in a dorm, they were fine.
I'd also suggest that looking too deep into college after a few years' work experience is maybe silly. Yeah, college was rough for me, as my anxiety disorder came into full bloom when I was 19, and it made it difficult for me to be able to handle being in class. It took me until I got out of school to find a decent shrink and get the meds I needed. I'm much better today.
r0ck0@reddit
Yeah it's especially weird for a Linux company.
My high school grades were shit. I didn't study much, because you know what I was doing instead?... running BBSes, programming, Linux servers & networking, including custom compiling the kernel back when we needed to in order to setup a NAT router, l33t hax0r things etc.
Not that unusual for people into Linux/OSS etc.
My friends who got the highest grades in school, and then went on to uni for IT never even had an interest in tech at all, and typically didn't stick with it.
guavasana@reddit
Exactly! I didn't even sent in my application -after reading these stupid questions it became clear that these are just a bunch of clowns.
SuperSathanas@reddit
I don't get it. If you're not looking for a degree specifically, then why would a grade in anything, at any point, matter at all? You ask for a degree because it's some kind of reliable-enough proof that the person knows what they claim to know, with some confidence gained in that they did the degree on purpose, versus doing a high school math course because you were required to. If you don't ask for the degree, provide a way for them to prove their skills.
Like, what kind of math? What are we applying it toward? I've been able to write out and solve matrix operations on paper since 10th grade, over 10 years ago, but it wasn't until the last couple of years that I actually learned how to apply that toward anything useful. Now I've written my own math libraries in C++ and Delphi/Free Pascal that are structured and optimized for some specific purposes, and can demonstrate that I know what I'm doing. I aced Algebra 2 in high school, but I didn't know at all what I could apply that toward. The grade is meaningless.
Not that I'm saying anything that anyone here doesn't already know. I'm just ranting.
FlukyS@reddit
I point a lot of people fail is an IQ test that measures word association and spatial awareness. I studied management, one of the things they warn heavily against is using parametric tests like they are gospel. They are a tool, a conversation topic but if you hold them too highly you are going to eliminate a lot of good candidates.
Like for instance in academia in Ireland we rarely use multiple choice tests or gotcha style quizzes. We have a lot of essay type work and creative work in school. So a parametric test is going to be hard for an entire nation of potential candidates. Also it disqualifies a lot of neurodivergent applicants like people with ADHD and dyslexia.
Possible-Cupcake8965@reddit
My first Job interview i took the dumbest logic test ever. it was basically to determine how well you can parrot facts instead of how your own critical thinking
_santhosh_reddy@reddit
The thing is they even ask this for experienced roles as welll
bastardoperator@reddit
Unless you're only hiring straight out of college, you're right, it's meaningless. I could be a mathematician at NASA with 20 years of experience, why are we even talking about high school at all? It's a waste of time.
This just has micromanagement written all over it. They're looking for a candidate they can manipulate into jumping through hoops. If the monkey will do this, what else can we get the monkey to do is likely their mentality.
SuperSathanas@reddit
It's either micromanagement, some kind of weird personal beliefs about the quality of people that's influencing their hiring practices, and/or they're struggling to find good candidates, so they're attempting to skim the top off of the bottom of the barrel. Maybe all of those.
If I saw anything about high school performance in a job posting, even without knowing a thing about the company or what they've produced, I'd immediately write them off as an organization to work for. There's just no good reason to ask for that information. You're either looking at all the wrong places and thereby most likely building the wrong team, or you're failing and still looking in all the wrong places. I don't want to go down with your ship, and I'm not going to pretend that I'll get in there and help them achieve success. Something is wrong at the top.
oceanclub@reddit
Found this page as I am just looking at their hiring process. I have no idea how I could translate an Irish Leaving Cert result in Maths from years ago into a metric that says what percentile of results at the time I came in. Bizarre stuff.
KSRJB02@reddit
How do you even determine your percentile in this shit? I took diff eq in HS, got an A in calc 1 at age 15, 790 math sat, what percentile is this? I'm not an olympiad winner or even a contestant so where does this even put me?
metux-its@reddit
lol they're also doing that on senior positions.
really can't take them seriously.
Mereo110@reddit
What the?! Bad, bad, bad hiring practice. When I was in high school, I had bad grades in French (I went to a French school in Canada), people thought I wouldn't be able to go to university. Well, I worked my ass off by going to adult high school and got the grades I needed to go to university, worked hard through university and now I have a master's degree. You cannot judge someone's past.
Asking for high school math and English grades is like judging a successful father/mother for their drug problems in high school.
Great-Medium-439@reddit
I've now decided to try to go through the whole process.
It's really weird and writing a bunch of text answering the questions, “How was your math in high school?”
- Hell yeah, I almost got kicked out of middle school because I got in a fight with my gym teacher.
- But I went to university and got a master's with a 98 out of 100 grade point average.
How's that gonna be graded?
I obviously didn't write about that.
Oh yes, the next one after the text interview was a cognitive test, which is totally useless and shows nothing! I did badly on the inverted letters task and at the end of it they write that “you may not be able to analyze graphs” - jeez, I've been analyzing graphs my whole career and I do it very well....
To be continued...
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
I did good on most of the cognitive tests there. One was average or just below average and they rejected me. Fuck, I have PhD in theoretical physics and do software / devops now for 8 years but I am too stupid to work at Canonical. Screw them.
Great-Medium-439@reddit
it's a very interesting experience.
I don't know what they're thinking, but I'm still in the process and haven't gotten the octase yet - but I'm not even hoping to get an offer.
Name 10+ years of experience in System Administration + DevOps + management
Having a masters in electronics and micro electronics - I don't think I will get an offer xD
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
The questions is... If you'd get it would you want to work there? Could be fun but sounds like a toxic place a bit...
Oh, and I wrote something negative about snaps. That may be why they rejected me as well, hahaha
Great-Medium-439@reddit
It all depends on the amount they offer - if it's enough to change the current company (it's really a real swamp and shit) - maybe I'll write about the current company somehow
But as a frostbite after moving to a new country I think I'll go - but I'll think 200 times.
DocumentOne1283@reddit
Not to pry, but did you ever get an answer from them?
Great-Medium-439@reddit
It's been a long time since I've been in here
But yeah, I got a response and it was negative.
MaMsvi@reddit
Does anybody know whether they provide EOR (Employee of Record) in the offer? I'm in Finland and by going through entrepreneur visa type it fucks up my getting passport processes
Odd_Dandelion@reddit
Once upon a time, I made it to the aptitude test. When I finished that, I realized I would never want to humiliate anyone by asking them to go through that. Sadly, as a manager (that was the role I wanted to apply for), I would have to. Never ever.
gravity48@reddit
That's a good perspective.
I'm interviewing with them, and considering this too (for management job)
Relief_Present@reddit
Did you end up getting the job? How did the interview go? Which managerial role did you apply to (assuming you're willing to disclose that)?
gravity48@reddit
Would you believe, after doing my application in about February, I am still in process with them.
Relief_Present@reddit
Wow lol….
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
;/
mohishunder@reddit
I am in the midst of the Canonical hiring process now. I'm early in the process, and the odds are against me, but so far I appreciate their genuine attempt to "get to know me."
Perhaps all the criticisms are valid. But I think these criticisms miss the point: "compared to which other company"?
Evaluating programmers through Leetcode is. And yet it's the rule for large US tech companies!
Also in Silicon Valley, ageism is absolutely rampant, and some other "-isms" are just as obvious despite all the virtue-signaling "DEI."
By relying on a formal and somewhat lengthy process, perhaps with a wider funnel, Canonical is doing better than many US companies - that's my impression.
Relief_Present@reddit
How did it go? Were you able to secure a role?
sleepandtvgood@reddit
I used to work for them a few years ago and I was lucky enough to get in BEFORE they implemented this crazy regiment hiring process. That's not to say my hiring process wasn't chaotic on its own lol.
The team that hired me was pretty good. I did not need to meet with The Man himself, because he does tend to want to meet almost all the new hires, not just review their CVs personally! But the interview process was interesting. No technical interview (for my role at least) but more of a "personality fit".
Working there was interesting. My old boss was pretty hard-core, old school linux dude. I had never heard a man curse so much so openly but yet I respected the shit out of him because he wasn't afraid to stand up for us when someone else within the company (usually Sales) did us wrong.
I eventually left due to change in management and another company offering me almost 2x more than what I was making.
quadralien@reddit
I enjoyed the Canonical interview process, though it was intrusive and high-latency. It was much better than any of the hackerrank or livecoding interviews made up of purposeless programming exercises, or configure-this-toy-cloud homework from other companies.
I felt like Canonical was looking for well-adjusted adults, not cogs for a machine.
I could have had an offer, but they couldn't sponsor my visa. Will definitely poke them once I don't need visa sponsorship.
wanna_beeee@reddit
Do they never sponser visa? I don't want to go through this only to know I am an F1 visa student and they can't hire me because I am on my OPT.
quadralien@reddit
I should have mentioned I am an expat in The Netherlands. They do sponsor employment in other countries.
wanna_beeee@reddit
Thank you for such quick response. I still think I should ask first before jumping into that much of a commitment, what do you say?
neo_the_rabbit@reddit
Hey were you able to get an answer to those question?
ite4life@reddit
Near impossible, feels like its who you know, ive applied to a lot of jobs and get shut down instantly there. Want to work there? Try and befriend an employee....
Forward-Switch2934@reddit
I can speak on how it is to work there and the honest answer is it depends. Some teams are nice, other are the absolute worst like mine. It was so toxic and so terrible that I woke up every day with dread and now I have clinical anxiety. Also if you are not from a developed country the pay is abysmal. Two months after I joined they hired someone to my role and the person made 10 times what I made. When I asked HR, they said it was because of regions.
openTruthSeeker@reddit
I was midst of canonical hiring process, after their worst technical interview with 38 bs questions, I received a link for assessment and after attempting it after 1-2 weeks, the moment I submitted the test, i received rejected mail from the Manager I had hopes on this since this is a complete remote job and have a good pay admist this recession. But now after going through all the comments here, I'm feeling that it's good that I got rejected, have been part of micromanaging and toxic company before, Don't want to end up in one again.
Narrow-Initiative758@reddit
Hi my friend just went through 10 round of interviews and just got rejected at the end of 10th one. The whole time period is from last Oct till recent. When I hear this I thought this company was electing president.
QualityOverQuant@reddit
op! I guess you are pretty desperate for a job given that you asked despite finding a ton of posts on Reddit specifically talking about their BS process and what a mind fuck it is and also calling them out for their toxic culture
For me any interview that takes away two months of my time isn’t worth it 😇
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
Now I made them waiting for a month ;)
No desperate per-se... But would change job rather sooner than later. I am indeed actively interviewing and Canonical due to being Linux focused company did indeed always seemed to me interesting as potential place - my young-self dream of working at company that does Linux :-D - so basically I was wondering if maybe though process is painful it may be a good place to land at the end of the day.
QualityOverQuant@reddit
Stay positive but not for these fucks
feeblebulldozer@reddit
I like my work and find it engaging, and my colleagues are super smart and helpful people. I also enjoy working with people from all over the world -- for me this is a great advantage, honestly. Pay and benefits are good for me but it will vary based on where you live (cost of life and stuff like that).
Yep, there are many complaints about the recruitment process and it is indeed long. When I applied I read all those comments beforehand so I knew exactly what was waiting for me, so there were no surprises on that front and I did not put all my hopes of being hired on Canonical. I think it took around 3 months (?) from applying online until receiving an offer.
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
How long are you working there and do you see yourself staying there for longer or moving after 2-3 years max?
Also for the pay level, is it more 80-100k levels or 100-150k levels? Thinking about GBPs.
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
linux-ModTeam@reddit
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thewrinklyninja@reddit
I've noticed a lot of long term well known canonical employees leave in the last 3-4 years. Should probably tell you all you need to know.
slimeyena@reddit
i have a friend who worked for canonical, all i know is she could work from home, in the 2010s, which was a pretty big deal. that fact alone got me into linux. i get the impression the compensation was decent too.
pfak@reddit
Compensation is garbage for the amount of time they require you to work. Have friends there that do 60 hours a week and get low six figures.
slimeyena@reddit
i would get pegged by a cactus 60 hours a week for a six figure salary
xAsasel@reddit
Sign me up
NatoBoram@reddit
There's another thread where I commented if you're interested in more interview stories
Quirky_Obligation_64@reddit
Why do you care if this is conditioned on going through humiliating recruitment process?
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
So far I judged the process as annoying rather than humiliating and I am trying to gauge if I have patience to go through it.
Quirky_Obligation_64@reddit
To me it's complexity is humiliating. If THEY look for an employee why do I have to waste tens of hours for perhaps getting a job? If they paid for this time this would be fair.
SpectR1@reddit
I am about to finish my bachelors degree in Norway and have been looking for potential jobs. I have seen canonical posting all over linkedin here. Entry linux support jobs. They have gotten 5k «applicants» (it counts people who pressed the linkedin apply, but that does not necessarily mean that people have applied), but the same postings have been reposted maaaaany times now, for some months, seemingly not anyone being hired.
I never thought to apply, but after seeing this post, I went and checked the postings myself and the form you have to fill is so ridiculous that I would never ever apply. Even the most egrigous IT consulting firms here in Norway do not make you fill out forms this ridiculous.
I am so glad and thankful I do not need to go through such a horrible process.
BrainSweetiesss@reddit
Canonicals recruitment process is the worst piece of shit I had to go through (actually I barely did the first interview cause they explained via email what it was like and I noped out as soon as I finished reading it)
Odilhao@reddit
My Red Hat application was "Hey look at this position on LinkedIn for my Country, let me apply, 20 days later I was called to do the process, 10 days later(3 interviews) I got my offering, it was pretty fast, this was back in 2019."
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
Did you got the offer? Did you enjoy it after?
BrainSweetiesss@reddit
With Canonical I didn’t bother to even read the response to their first interview results since to me it was a total waste of time. With SUSE I got an offer but couldn’t get to work for them cause of tax issues in Europe (remote work)
I can’t imagine working at canonical to be much different from the other two big Linux companies and I feel they think too much of themselves and their recruitment process is absolute garbage and an insult to any IT professional who values their time.
I_Think_I_Cant@reddit
I would imagine it's frustrating because you'll work on a specific project for years and years only to have it shitcanned because there's already a better existing solution which becomes dominant in the market.
thenormaluser35@reddit
Linux is FOSS. Fix bugs in widely used software, perhaps contribute to the WINE development if you can, you don't have to work at Canonical.
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
That unfortunately won't pay the bills :)
thenormaluser35@reddit
What even is the salary at Canonical like?
There are many other fields and companies if you want a high paycheck. If you want to find opinions, go to the Canonical HQ and ask emplyees after they leave.
Drate_Otin@reddit
Are you recommending flying from who knows where to creep on employees leaving their office as a viable way to get a good idea of the work culture?
thenormaluser35@reddit
Where will OP work then if he's in the middle of nowhere?
Also, this is r/linux, maybe of should have asked this in r/linuxquestions or the ubuntu subreddit.
Drate_Otin@reddit
Are you suggesting that moving anywhere on earth other than London is the middle of nowhere?
Also it's the Internet, so yes. They could live in the middle of nowhere and still have a good job.
thenormaluser35@reddit
You are asking too many questions and answering none. If your purpose is to troll, get a life, or lose it.
Drate_Otin@reddit
It's hard to answer questions as absurd as yours. It's the Internet and you question whether somebody could live in the middle of nowhere and work. Yes... They can.
But more importantly you suggested that flying to London to creep on people leaving their office was a viable way to get a good idea of Canonical's work culture. When challenged on that you implied that if that's too far away they must be in the middle of nowhere.
To me, if I were OP, I might goto an online space with people that may actually work with Linux and hope one of them works at Canonical. Maybe a sub specifically about Linux and related topics. That, to me, seems like a better and more efficient way to get an answer than buying a plane ticket to London so I can be creepy outside an office building.
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
That was my thinking, yeah. I was hoping that in wide Linux community here I will have high chance to find someone actually working @ Canonical. After all next to Suse & Red Hat is one of not many enterprises focusing on Linux so hoped to find here fellow professionals.
Gauging mostly constructive responses I guess I was kind of right in my thinking. I don't think r/linuxquestions would be right as that's more of questions on how to use linux from what I recon. Also a previous conversation about canonical recruitement process I found happened on this subreddit.
InterestingVladimir@reddit
Op should go to work MacDonald's so he can fix WINE bugs for free ^/s
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
hahaha, yes :)
Wrong-Historian@reddit
But you'll be working on dead-end and wasted projects like Unity, Mir, Juju, Upstart and evil projects like Snap and Amazon Spyware. Guess if that's what you want to do with your life then it's your choice.
BiteImportant6691@reddit
You sound like a very happy person.
catcat202X@reddit
I don't think it's fair to group Mir in with those. Mir's only technical fault (leaving aside the extremely suspicious way it was open sourced) is that the thing it's good at, building portable graphics stacks, wound up being something users don't actually want. Canonical expected there would be a market for Linux TVs, Linux cars, Linux smart watches, etc., and these have basically just not materialized as they hoped. But Mir might still be a great fit for those things if they existed.
Wrong-Historian@reddit
Oh maybe it's great technically, the problem is politics. If they suffer from 'not-invented-here-syndrom' and don't communicate with other open-source projects, then the project will just not be adopted and will die off. It's extremely demotivating as a developer and engineer to work on a project and invest years of your life into something that is 'just' shelved. And at Canonical it happens far too often. That would be a huge risk to the enjoyment at the work I'd be doing. For me would be a huge consideration when choosing a job
Glass_Drama8101@reddit (OP)
Yeah, I don't really like Snaps... Offer I've seen was around Python + K8s so probably MicroK8s? That does not sound that terrible.
iluvatar@reddit
I can't speak from personal experience. But I know several people that used to work there and all of them have told me how glad they are that they no longer work for Canonical. Make of that what you will.
netean@reddit
I would love to get back to doing Linux based support and they seem to be perpetually looking for support managers (that in itself is a bit of a red flag) But the whole interview process is so long and tedious I gave up mid way through on both occasions when I applied.
The written interview part is such a load of bullshit as well, it takes a huge chunk of your time to write (you could answer the questions in a fraction of the time if it was done verbally).
Both times I just looked at the length of time for each stage of the interview process and thought I would be better off spending that time applying for other companies instead.
The time they want you to invest before you actually get to talk to anyone face to face is, in my opinion, just not worth it. Coupled with the near constant open positions and I think that tells me that Canonical wants a huge investment from you if you get the job and they have trouble keeping their staff.