Not Terrible Not Great - Software Engineer Canonical Employee Review

3.0
May 22, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- ICs are almost always great people. - Depending on your background you learn a lot. - Salary and benefits almost always match and even exceed local companies. - Fully remote since 2004 and always will be. - Travel.

Cons

- Teams are chronically underfilled and roadmaps are chronically overcommitted. - Depending on the team, you can be a one person startup with all the responsibilities you have. - Work is inefficient. It is hard to deliver on things here. Some people work the evenings to work without interruptions. - Performance reviews are a black-box and based on people's feelings. But they are a gate to your raises, bonuses, and promotions. - Company stance shifted against the employee during the post-pandemic crash. - Travel becomes a chore.

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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