Great technology, Talented people... horrible Leader - Director of Sales Canonical Employee Review

2.0
May 3, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great technology, people and commitment to make the planet a better place. Strong leadership in Cloud market

Cons

CEO is too involved with every single decision and has zero issue with treating people with disrespect. He's brilliant, but not such a good leader.

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Canonical Response
3y
Thank you for providing insight into your experience of our people, technology and leadership teams. We are proud to be developing an organisation that puts people and product first. We are still growing and the direction our CEO and Senior Leadership team has contributed hugely to the success of Canonical. This direction has been especially valued at a time where we see so many other organisations in our industry suffer a bumpy time due to global economic conditions.

Explore other reviews about Canonical

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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