Skip to contentSkip to footer
  • Community
  • Jobs
  • Companies
  • Salaries
  • For Employers
      Notifications

      Loading...

      Elevate your career

      Discover your earning potential, land dream jobs, and share work-life insights anonymously.

      employer cover photo
      employer logo
      employer logo

      Canonical

      Engaged Employer

      About
      Reviews
      Pay & benefits
      Jobs
      Interviews
      Interviews
      Related searches: Canonical reviews | Canonical jobs | Canonical salaries | Canonical benefits
      Canonical interviewsCanonical Software Engineer interviewsCanonical interview
      Company Bowl sample

      Want the inside scoop on your own company?

      Check out your Company Bowl for anonymous work chats.

      Bowls

      Get actionable career advice tailored to you by joining more bowls.

      Followed companies

      Stay ahead in opportunities and insider tips by following your dream companies.

      Job searches

      Get personalized job recommendations and updates by starting your searches.

      Software Engineer Interview

      Jan 1, 2024
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      No offer
      Neutral experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at Canonical

      Interview

      * Initial resume screening * Written Interview (about 30 questions) * Psychometric assessment * Technical, management and HR interviews I stopped after 1st human interview because it became clear that the job would not match my expectations.

      Interview questions [12]

      Question 1

      What kinds of software projects have you worked on before? Which operating systems, development environments, languages, databases?
      Answer question

      Question 2

      Would you describe yourself as a high quality coder? Why?
      Answer question

      Question 3

      What is your most senior role in a software engineering organisation? De- scribe your responsibilities and what you learned from that role.
      Answer question

      Question 4

      What is your proudest success as an engineer?
      Answer question

      Question 5

      Outline your thoughts on open source software development. What is impor- tant to get right in open source projects? What open source projects have you worked on? Have you been an open source maintainer, on which projects, and what was your role?
      Answer question

      Question 6

      Describe your experience building large systems with many services - web front ends, REST APIs, data stores, event processing and other kinds of in- tegration between components. What are the key things to think about in regard to architecture, maintainability, and reliability in these large systems?
      Answer question

      Question 7

      How comprehensive would you say your knowledge of a Linux distribution is, from the kernel up? How familiar are you with low-level system architecture, runtimes and Linux distro packaging? How have you gained this knowledge?
      Answer question

      Question 8

      Describe any experience you have with low-level embedded systems engineer- ing, on Linux or other embedded operating systems
      Answer question

      Question 9

      Describe your experience with large-scale IT operations, SAAS, or other run- ning services, in a devops or IS or system administration capacity
      Answer question

      Question 10

      Outline your thoughts on quality in software development. What practices are most effective to drive improvements in quality?
      Answer question

      Question 11

      Outline your thoughts on documentation in large software projects. What practices should teams follow? What are great examples of open source docs?
      Answer question

      Question 12

      Outline your thoughts on performance in software engineering. How do you ensure that your product is fast?
      Answer question
      10

      Other Software Engineer Interview Reviews for Canonical

      Software Engineer Interview

      Jul 9, 2026
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Phoenix, AZ
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Canonical (Phoenix, AZ)

      Interview

      Brutally long and difficult. They take their time so only apply if you have time and are dedicated to open source tech. That being said they are very communicative so if you have any questions its not such a black box.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      They'll ask for specific niche aspects of coding languages to check if you actually use them day to day.
      Answer question

      Software Engineer Interview

      May 13, 2026
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Canonical

      Interview

      It's an extremely long process that includes standardized tests, take home assignments, and several rounds of interviews. It was at least 5 rounds long and you interview across different teams.

      Software Engineer Interview

      May 12, 2026
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      London, England
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through other source. I interviewed at Canonical (London, England)

      Interview

      They have a really long, tiring interview process. The first round was a written interview where I had to answer like 15 questions. Then a coding interview with 1 hour time that I could do anytime for 2 weeks. Then I had to take a personality test and they totally ghosted me.

      Canonical interviews FAQs

      • Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Canonical with 3.2 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 16% positive. To compare, the company-average is 14.9% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
      • Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 53 days to get hired, when considering 155 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Canonical overall takes an average of 51 days.
      • Common stages of the interview process at Canonical as a Software Engineer according to 155 Glassdoor interviews include:

        Skills test:  19%

        Personality test:  19%

        IQ intelligence test:  17%

        One on one interview:  16%

        Phone interview:  12%

        Other:  7%

        Presentation:  3%

        Background check:  3%

        Group panel interview:  2%

        Drug test:  1%

      • Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -

        1. Software Engineer(95) ;
        2. Engineering Manager(20) ;
        3. Sales Development Representative (SDR)(14) ;
        4. Senior Software Engineer(12) ;
        5. Sales(11) ;
        6. Director(8) ;
        7. Manager(8) ;
        8. Product Manager(8) ;
        9. Technical Support Engineer(8) ;
        10. Software Developer(6) ;
        11. Software Engineer I(6) ;
        12. Project Manager(5) ;
        13. Sales Executive(5) ;
        14. Cloud Operations Engineer(4) ;
        15. Engineer(4) .


      Glassdoor

      • About / Press
      • Awards
      • Blog
      • Research
      • Contact Us
      • Guides

      Employers

      • Free Employer Account
      • Employer Center
      • Employers Blog

      Information

      • Help
      • Guidelines
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy & Ad Choices
      • Do Not Sell Or Share My Information
      • Cookie Consent Tool
      • Security

      Work With Us

      • Advertisers
      • Careers
      Download the App

      • Browse by:
      • Companies
      • Jobs
      • Locations
      • Communities
      • Recent Posts

      Copyright © 2008-2026. Indeed, Inc. "Glassdoor," "Worklife Pro," "Bowls," and logo are proprietary trademarks of Indeed, Inc.

      Jobs at Canonical

      65 jobs in United States
      Ubuntu Core Software Engineer
      London, England
      ·
      £50K - £92K /yr
      (Glassdoor est.)
      View job
      Software Engineer - Data Infrastructure
      Douglas, Scotland
      ·
      £47K - £67K /yr
      (Glassdoor est.)
      View job
      Web Frontend Engineer - JS, CSS, React, Flutter
      Douglas, Scotland
      ·
      £48K - £70K /yr
      (Employer provided)
      View job
      Software Engineer, Sustaining Engineering
      Douglas, Scotland
      ·
      £41K - £74K /yr
      (Glassdoor est.)
      View job
      Python Software Engineer, Commercial Systems
      Douglas, Scotland
      ·
      £41K - £74K /yr
      (Glassdoor est.)
      View job
      View all Software Engineer Jobs