I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Canonical in Mar 2024
Interview
The interview process for Canonical is ridiculous and insulting to potential employees. The process consists of a ton of stages only for them to decline you an offer in the end with minimal feedback after 10+ hours of commitment. The stages of the process are as follows: (1) Initial Application Submission (2) Written Response Questions - they will send you a TON of random written responds questions that took about 2 weeks of work on my end (3) Technical Assessment - an extremely challenging 2ish hours coding assessment (4) Psychometric Assessment - about an hour long logic test (5) "Early Stage Interviews" - in my case 3 technical interviews that were over an hour long and finally (6) Late stage interviews with company executives and offer. In the technical interviews, they will ask you tons and tons of super specific and unnecessary questions that you have and will never need to know for a job or even any other typical technical interview. I made it through to stage 5 of the process and at this point they had still not even clarified with me the terms of a potential offer (compensation, title, ETC) after like I said putting in over 10 hours of work. I, like you might have, read poor reviews on GD but thought I would be different as I have a great resume and experience and Canonical is a reputable company in my field, but alas I was not. I wasted a ton of time on this and am extremely disappointed and disheartened by this ridiculous and insulting interview process. I truly don't know who they even choose to hire with standards like this.
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.
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.
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:
Personality test: 19%
Skills test: 19%
IQ intelligence test: 17%
One on one interview: 16%
Phone interview: 12%
Other: 7%
Background check: 3%
Presentation: 3%
Group panel interview: 2%
Drug test: 1%
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