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points by Hasz 1 day ago | 0 comments

I worked there for a couple years. IMO, the hiring process holds Canonical back from scaling like a typical tech co, but they probably don't want to. It also attracts a very specific type of person; everyone I personally worked with was very bright and capable.

IME, because of pay, they have a hard time retaining "senior" talent, eg Nvidia, Chainguard, Amutable, Lambda, etc etc etc all have lots and lots of senior+ Canonical engineers. Especially in the age of AI, I think this is a "people-strategy" mistake.

The application process is very long and you absolutely lose great candidates because of it. Salaries are not US-tech competitive, but absolutely are Central/South America and Europe competitive. Lots of great Brazilian and Polish engineers, for example.

Also I have never seen a post on HN, Reddit etc about Canonical/Ubuntu that doesn't complain about hiring process. I think it does a pretty incredible amount of damage to the brand.

[–] ndiddy 1 day ago

> It also attracts a very specific type of person; everyone I personally worked with was very bright and capable.

How well did you and your colleagues do at math in high school?

[–] queenkjuul 1 day ago

Well if they work at canonical we know they did very well

[–] throw-the-towel 1 day ago

I wonder why these bright abd capable people didn't join a company that actually pays reasonably.

> Salaries are not US-tech competitive, but absolutely are Central/South America and Europe competitive.

Don't their salary bands change between countries? They're offering 55k-ish to a Senior SWE in France, which is a low-ball offer even there.

[–] rcxdude 1 day ago

>I wonder why these bright abd capable people didn't join a company that actually pays reasonably.

Sounds like they do when they get the chance. I've worked for a company that didn't have quite as crazy a hiring process but they had the same basic profile - very good at hiring for potential in juniors, but underpaid for the ability they wanted. As a result they really struggle to hire seniors and are often a stepping stone to a better paid position. They do manage to keep some people until retirement, though (a very bimodal distribution - generally either brilliant but don't care to work anywhere else, or utterly useless and can't get a job anywhere else)

[–] nish__ 1 day ago

If they're so bright and capable why can't they patch their OS?

[–] throwaway27448 1 day ago

> It also attracts a very specific type of person; everyone I personally worked with was very bright and capable.

I don't know anyone at canonical personally, so I have no specific opinion. However. This smells like the same bullshit peddled by any tech company's hiring policy but executed less competently.