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Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

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Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#161

Post by vetinari »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #123
NegativeLatency wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what planet is the Arch Linux install process the same as the Ubuntu install process. As someone at the time who didn’t know anything about Linux and had dialup internet, it was extremely handy to be able to pop in a disk and get running like I was used to with other OSes

>what planet is the Arch Linux install process the same as the Ubuntu install process. That is not what they said, the desktop was plain GNOME and that experience was the same as any other distro running plain GNOME. What set them apart was the installer and the rest of their post.

But the desktop was not plain GNOME.

It was polished GNOME. They were but of the jokes at the time for the color theme chosen, but it had polish that plain GNOME didn't.

That is valid even today; just the choice of default font is huge. Ubuntu font vs Cantarell? They are not even in the same league.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#162

Post by robertlagrant »

glistenemployed wrote: post #88
robertlagrant wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Huge red flag What could be worse than a small joke from 20 years ago?

I’ve also willingly subjected myself to this draconian interview process once and what I gathered from one of the engineers is that Mark Ubuntu is still very much hands-on and still very much antagonizing. Take that as you will, but there’s probably not been much change since that small joke from 20 years ago.

I wouldn't call that joke antagonizing particularly, though? Or do you mean something separate?

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#163

Post by vetinari »

ghaff wrote: post #68
rlpb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I must be missing something, but TBH I’m finding it hard to remember any major technical contributions from Canonical. Parallelized service start on desktop boot and other similar desktop boot optimizations come to mind. But yeah, mostly it's the remaining 80% work of polish (in the sense of the adage of the remaining 20% actually being 80%) needed to make a Free Software system usable by the masses. Lots of work a…

Canonical, for better or worse, was also willing to take a less doctrinaire approach to including software that was encumbered in various ways (e.g. MP3 at the time) than Debian and Fedora which made it a better out-of-the-box experience for casual users.

Canonical, being incorporated on Isle of Man, could make moves, that distributions rooted in US could not. MP3 is the prime example.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#164

Post by weinzierl »

hluska wrote: post #94
weinzierl wrote: post #10

This is from a very long time ago, but if you dig deep enough you can still find this gem. From memory, and not the precise wording: The Canonical jobs page used to say you should only apply if you have accomplished something extraordinary in your life. If you haven't you should apply here , where here liked to the US government website. EDIT: I misremembered the site, it was not on canonical.com but http://markshutt…

It’s time for me to leave Ubuntu behind for good. I can’t support anyone who is this much of an asshole.

C'mon, it was a casual joke and no harm done. Also punching someone weaker is a simple act, but taking on someone stronger requires courage.

Does it fit the somewhat quirky (but by far not unusual) interview process? Yes

Is it a sign of a moral flaw? No

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#165

Post by parl_match »

Tade0 wrote: post #158

I don't understand this at all. The only type of person who would have the time to go through all this would be someone with considerable amounts of fuck you money. But such people just say fuck you and move on when the process becomes tedious. Who are they trying to hire here? I've been to a few companies which had way too more applicants than they knew what to do with, but most of the time it was because the majori…

>Who are they trying to hire here?

Self-described "Linux users".

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#167

Post by johnvanommen »

tristor wrote: post #120
hashtag-til wrote: post #110

(A bit off-topic, but to give another example of where convoluted hiring processes get you to...) Last year, I did 8 interviews (including 4 technical assessments and quizzes) to get an offer from AMD (in Germany) as a software engineer. For completeness, they reached out to me. I wasn't really looking at the time. When I got the offer, salary+bonus was less than what I had at the time (a lot less now) living in a si…

Hardware companies simply don't pay as much as software companies in industry. I don't fully understand the reasons, because hardware is often more difficult to deal with than software. That said, I have found that there has been a rash of companies / recruiters reaching out to relatively senior people making offers that wouldn't have been acceptable a decade ago, much less in 2023. I recently had one reach out to me…

> Hardware companies simply don't pay as much as software companies in industry. I don't fully understand the reasons, because hardware is often more difficult to deal with than software.

I switched from being a Windows admin to a Solaris admin in the 90s and got a pay bump of something like 60%

In many ways, I found Solaris to be easier. Windows was wildly unstable in the 90s.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#168

Post by _zoltan_ »

ghaff wrote: post #157
thiht wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> interviewed me while having dinner (on his end) Wtf? Couldn’t he have done that at a more convenient time?

Doesn't seem that odd? I imagine he has a pretty busy schedule.

This would be a deal breaker for me. 0 respect.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#169

Post by dcminter »

MockObject wrote: post #107
dcminter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper Canonical is a company I'd rather enjoy working for. I love the product (despite its flaws) and have a lot of relevant experience. I wouldn't even object to the long interview process as such. Written materials? Sure! I'd love to see the bar raised on developers' writing skills! Why not. But man, that High School question? The implicit agism and the shere fuck-you irrelevance of my circumstances 35 years ago…

Asking about high school is ridiculous, but how is it age-ist? They had high schools back in the old days, too.

Because it strongly implies that they are looking for people for whom high school experience was recent enough to be relevant to who they are now. For a 20-something this is (debatably) plausible. For a fifty or sixty year old it is at best a tenuous indicator.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#170

Post by tetrep »

tristor wrote: post #120
hashtag-til wrote: post #110

(A bit off-topic, but to give another example of where convoluted hiring processes get you to...) Last year, I did 8 interviews (including 4 technical assessments and quizzes) to get an offer from AMD (in Germany) as a software engineer. For completeness, they reached out to me. I wasn't really looking at the time. When I got the offer, salary+bonus was less than what I had at the time (a lot less now) living in a si…

Hardware companies simply don't pay as much as software companies in industry. I don't fully understand the reasons, because hardware is often more difficult to deal with than software. That said, I have found that there has been a rash of companies / recruiters reaching out to relatively senior people making offers that wouldn't have been acceptable a decade ago, much less in 2023. I recently had one reach out to me…

> Hardware companies simply don't pay as much as software companies in industry. I don't fully understand the reasons, because hardware is often more difficult to deal with than software.

This is heavily reflected in hardware security. Very few devices are not tire fires, even before IoT took off. My best guess as to why is that many hardware engineers are next to the hardware in Shenzhen and their wages act as an anchor for the rest of the industry. Either that or I've listened to too many bunnie talks and played too much Shenzhen I/O.

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