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      Canonical

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      Software Engineer Interview

      Nov 1, 2024
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Canonical

      Interview

      Disrespectful of your time. passed a live initial screening interview then I was given a take home written interview. Normal questions I'd expect to be able to answer in a live interview but to type out responses to 21 questions takes a long time! I wanted to give the interview a proper effort so that ended up being 8 pages (2600 words). Didn't progress and just a got a generic we couldn't possible give you any feedback email. Don't waste candidates time if you can't even give feedback, especially when you don't even get any facial expression feedback from someone. If you have too many people doing written interviews then your initial screening interview is a waste of everyone's time.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Engineering experience What kinds of software projects have you worked on before? Which operating systems, development environments, languages, databases? Would you describe yourself as a strong coder? Why? Would you describe yourself as a strong architect? If so, why, and in which sorts of applications? What is your most senior role in a software engineering organisation? Describe your span of control, and the diversity of products, functions and teams you led. What is your proudest success as an engineering leader? Outline your thoughts on open source software development. What is important to get right in open source projects? What open source projects have you worked on? Have you been an open source maintainer, on which projects, and what was your role? Outline your overall understanding of either Python, Rust or Go ecosystem: What tools are part of its ecosystem? How much experience do you have with it? What makes your experience relevant to this position? How comprehensive would you say your knowledge of a Linux distribution is, from the kernel up? How have you gained this knowledge? Outline your thoughts on quality in software development. What practices are most effective to drive improvements in quality? Outline your thoughts on performance in software engineering. How do you ensure that your product is fast? Outline your thoughts on security in software engineering. How do you lead your engineers to improve their security posture and awareness? Context Outline your thoughts on the mission of Canonical. What is it about the company's purpose and goals which is most appealing to you? What is risky or unappealing? Are there any elements of the company goals that you are unsure about? Who are Canonical's key competitors, and how should Canonical set about winning? Why do you most want to work for Canonical? What would you most want to change about Canonical? Education In high school, how did you rank competitively in maths and hard sciences? Which university and degree did you choose, what others did you consider, and why did you select that one? At university, did you do particularly well at any area of your degree? Overall, what was your degree result and how did that reflect on your ability? In high school and university, what did you achieve that was exceptional? What leadership roles did you take on during your education?
      Answer question
      4

      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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