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      Canonical

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      Related searches: Canonical reviews | Canonical jobs | Canonical salaries | Canonical benefits
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      Software Engineer Interview

      Oct 20, 2021
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Canonical in Aug 2021

      Interview

      The interview process was quite long: - written interview (approx 1 page, cover letter like assignment with areas that should be addressed) - intelligence and personality tests - several interviews with people who don't work in the same team in which the role is open (6 different calls in my case), these are called cross-team interviews - technical assessment, writing a command line tool in python - interview with the hiring manager The cross-team interviews are OK, but always follow the same pattern with the introductions and the same questions over and over again so it's tiring after a while. You don't really get any useful info about the role, as the interviewers don't work in the same team. It could be done in one call with all the people, but for some reason I only talked with one person at a time, which makes the process incredibly long. The technical assessment was quite easy, the instruction was to finish it in 24 hours once I read the task description (that's a bit weird for a programming assignment but whatever). I did this midway through the cross-team interviews and we didn't really discuss my solution which was a disappointment, as it seemed like they didn't really checked it at all. Finally after a month of interviewing I had a call with the hiring manager. At this point I was quite burnt out by the whole process. I didn't really prepare for the interview as I thought the hard part was already over (which was obviously a huge mistake). The manager told me that they want someone with more seniority for this role and he has something else in his mind for me (which would have been nice to clarify in the beginning...). Went through the same stuff but dived into some more technical topics which was not going well because I didn't prepare. Got rejected after the interview which was understandable based on my performance on the hiring manager's interview. The problem is, this interview should have been the first from the bunch, and the rest can be done in one bigger interview when there are several people are present. The entire hiring process is severely bad, it wastes everyone's time. They emphasize in the beginning they do things a bit differently than others and engineers conduct these interview. Well, there is a reason why HR departments exist, they can do these things much better or at least they should oversee the process. It was an awful experience. Fortunately got an offer from an other company after two interviews and a technical assignment.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      - talk about previous experiences - write a CLI tool in Python technical questions from hiring manager: - what is GIL in Python - describe kubernetes components, what are the advantages of using k8s
      Answer question
      8

      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:

        Personality test:  19%

        Skills 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

      65 jobs in United States
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