Dysfunctional - Anonymous employee Canonical Employee Review

1.0
Mar 30, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work wherever and however your like (most managers don't even bother to check if you're achieving your goals). If you buy into Mark Shuttleworth's ever changing vision, it's a stimulating and exciting place to be.

Cons

Staff turnover is scary and the HR department is busy hiring replacements, not new roles. Most people I worked with and talked to were highly stressed. Looks like a technology lab born explore its founder's ideas not like a business that exists to make a profit and fullfill market needs. Whether they make business sense or not, your ideas and actions won't make progress unless you're an upper management pet. Conversely, if you are an upper management pet, the road for you is paved for any nonsensical thought you might come up with.

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5.0
Apr 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

very good. happy so far

Cons

could be better, like the time of application to final round

2.0
Jan 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

> Highly visible open source company > O.K. pay and benefits > Twice yearly trips to interesting locations > Intelligent and mostly caring colleagues > Getting to put Canonical on your resume will help your career

Cons

> Toxic leadership style trickles down to the middle management. They're ruthless and single-minded (and extremely intelligent) at the top, and those seem to be the traits that get people promoted. The promotion process is also hilariously involved, and if you don't perform they'll demote you. > Insane interview process - mine took something like four months to complete, represented like 40+ hours of my time, and was considered average. > Twice yearly trips for grueling weeklong sprints. > The company only hires the best so, if you're used to being very good at your job, here you'll only be average at best. > Stack ranking - bottom X% of employees after each biannual review are placed on a PIP. > From what I saw, there are no "personality hires". Morale is expected to be derived solely from the company-paid work trips and the experience of getting paid to create open source software. Maybe this is unavoidable for full-remote companies, but it gets gloomy. > The video-on calls with your team and other teams will take up several hours of every single day, good luck finding time to actually get your work done during the day.

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