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 11, 2024
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Easy interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Canonical in Dec 2023

      Interview

      Applicant BEWARE! Advice for anyone applying would be only apply if you already have a job + willing to wait a long time for a turn around + ready to be rejected for no reason + mentally ill. Its understandable if you don't have a job and are willing to go through this process since you gotta do what you gotta do. But if you already have a job, why would you put yourself through this process? They are absolutely not worth it. Firstly this company does not have enough clout to be putting this many rounds. They are completely delusional to think that they are A: They're a good enough company to require this kind of filtering and B: Think their compensation matches the amount of pig scum required to get to an offer. Now they probably might be reading this thinking I'm just another bitter candidate who is leaving a review after being shafted a 7 rounder and left with a no reason rejection. I'm sure they sit in a circle discussing how their process isn't a complete disgrace and how they are actually finding the top talent in the work pool. I would implore them to rethink that. Whoever thought of this process should do a shadow application for one of the roles and actually go through the process themselves. Either way its a free world and you can choose to apply or not. Just heed the warnings in the posts below. If you think you have a chance you probably don't. And if you know you're top talent and have high confidence that you will make it through all rounds then why would you choose to work here anyway LOL. Save your time and effort for FANG or something. Complete dog compensation and the management clearly is running some sort of experiment to see how many people will fall for the trap. Typical things that the rest of the posts say. Essay asking about your past. IQ test. Take home test. 3 initial technicals rounds, Linux skills, take home test review, and your language of choice deep dive (Golang for my case). Was rejected at this stage. Be aware if you make it past here you have another 3/4 round to go. Around 10 rounds in total. I'm 99% that this is a process that started of as a comedy sketch from one of the employees but the incompetent management took it seriously and decided to actually implement it. Or the company has turned into money laundering operation and they want to know who they can control by conducting a 10 rounder. In either case a complete disgrace. I would like to add that the 3 individuals conducting the technical rounds where great. They understand and relate to the pound to flesh it took to get to speaking to one of them so I guess they feel sorry for you by that point.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Have you ever been a dancing Monkey? Or have you ever been pimped out? If so are you willing to for a 10 rounder? Take home test to implement audit logger service in your chosen lang.
      1 Answer
      6

      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