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      Canonical

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      Software Engineer Interview

      Aug 20, 2013
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Bengaluru
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 7 weeks. I interviewed at Canonical (Bengaluru) in Jun 2013

      Interview

      Applied online for the position mentioned above. The HR got back to me after about 3 weeks stating they had selected my resume (primarily for Qt skills). Had 2 rounds of telephonic interview, 1 hour each, in different timezones and both times the HR exec arranged the wrong time! 1st round was supposed to be by hiring manager, but it was coupled with a tech interview as well. Questions ranged mostly about my experience with Qt (my experience has mostly been in the multimedia embedded domain) and few on how signal/slots worked. Some elementary questions on hash tables and how they work. They also asked questions about how I would handle certain scenarios while working remotely. In the 1st interview, they said they'd let me know if I was selected/rejected for the next stage. For the 2nd round I was contacted within a few days. This round was with Unity API lead. The interviewer sent me a C++ header file, few mins before the interview, which was going to be discussed as part of the interview. This time the questions were pure C++ and OO desgin related. I'd never used exceptions (because of Qt usage) so got stumped there a little. But overall the interview went well. After that there was complete silence on their part for the next 3-4 weeks . Prodding the HR exec who had contacted me for the interview, finally revealed that they will not be processing my application to the next stage. I'm not sure what the reason for rejection was. Might be they did not find my C++ skills upto the mark or the fact that I was in India and they did not have any presence in India (so things like salary, tax etc might've been an issue). I'm saying this because this point, that how will I work remotely from India, came up during the 1st interview and the program manager did not really have an answer he told me that they'd have to 'figure something out'. Overall a good exp, apart from the lack of response from the HR.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      I've never worked remotely in my career of 10+ yrs till now. So this was something I was new to and question pertaining to work from home were a little unexpected. Eg: how will I manage to resolve an issue if my reporting manager is away and there's a delivery deadline approaching!
      Answer question
      2

      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(96) ;
        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) .


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    • Jobs at Canonical

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