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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

#401

Post by deaddodo »

aulin wrote: post #400
deaddodo wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both looked dated back then, but Fedora Core 3 more so. That's a matter of preference. Regardless, the Humanity theme is much closer to what standard GNOME looked like back then. Which goes against the original point that they were especially polished. > Besides a slightly less clunky selection for theming, the game changer was the installer and the willingness to chuck the Free Software purity, back when the FSF w…

I'm not completely convinced about the free discs argument. I grew up in a modest family, small village (3k people), 14k modem, and yet every (all the two of them) newsstand had at least two biweekly Linux magazines. They cost something like 5€ (or whatever currency we had at the time) and they always had either 2 linux installer cd or one installer and one cd with some cool software to try. And they had serious qual…

Oh, definitely. I should be clear that this is a very US-centric viewpoint. The European scene (especially France and Germany) was drastically different. Whereas Red Hat/Fedora had a massive slice of the pie in the US, SuSE reigned over Germany. Additionally, Europeans (especially the hacker/developer scene) globbed onto Free Software much more quickly.

So, to clarify: when Ubuntu came out in the US, the only truly accessible methods to get access to Linux were to live in a city large enough to have big box tech stores with hobbyist/DIY sections or to order online. And to have some reason to want to try it. The US was much more entrenched in a monoculture/duopoly from the early Mac and DOS days; while Europeans were still happily hacking about on Amigas, Commodores/Ataris, BeBoxen, etc.

As to why Ubuntu took over, over there? I can only hazard that the gains they benefited from near ubiquity and eventual ease of use just osmotically permeated across the pond. But you're correct, I think the free discs probably had less of an influence.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#402

Post by robertlagrant »

r00fus wrote: post #388
robertlagrant wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, don't worry. Everyone who pays taxes works for the government :-)

More like investors... or subscription customers. But not employees.

I think your metaphor is going in the wrong direction! Customers and investors have a choice. We pay the government or we get locked in a box we helped pay for (-:

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#404

Post by Arch-TK »

tmpX7dMeXU wrote: post #311
verzali wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I applied to be an astronaut and that was only 5 or 6 rounds of interviews. Granted, you have a lot more invasive medical tests and being dunked upside down in swimming pools.

That doesn’t sound nearly as bad as implementing quicksort on a whiteboard :)

It actually sounds like fun in comparison to implementing anything on a whiteboard.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#405

Post by YeBanKo »

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.

What is a good alternative to migrate from Ubuntu to?

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#406

Post by diegoveralli »

markshuttle wrote: post #327
diegoveralli wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether it's a deliberate strategy but this definitely happened to me during my interview with Canonical this year. From a diversity perspective, putting any focus on teenage years will probably select candidates from a privileged background, or people who have re-written their past into the award-winning narrative that's implied by the questions. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe someone could answer the quest…

In my experience it's university access that's very heavily shaped by privilege, not high school. High school is a sort of universal misery - pretty much everyone who might be applying for a job with us, from almost any country, would have gone to high school. Rich or poor, you had to suffer through it. Yes, you're a different person now than you were then, but it's still interesting to hear how people handled work a…

To be clear, while I believe focusing on high school has a negative impact on diversity, I don't think this is intentional on Canonical's part.

Also I should say the overall recruitment process works, I was not the right candidate for the job, and the job wasn't right for me. But I think there were much stronger signals pointing to that during the process than what I did during high school.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#407

Post by sph »

Arch-TK wrote: post #404
tmpX7dMeXU wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t sound nearly as bad as implementing quicksort on a whiteboard :)

It actually sounds like fun in comparison to implementing anything on a whiteboard.

I'd rather all interview processes were like one of those funny Japanese game shows, rather than the dehumanisingly dull whiteboard interviee.

I could see a dystopian sci-fi short story or Black Mirror episode with the same theme.

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#408

Post by sph »

snoman wrote: post #369
thayne wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly doesn't help that many companies never inform you if you don't get a position, so if a candidate doesn't get a response quickly, they are likely to assume they were rejected.

I used to work at a medium sized firm (~2B revenue) and we had a policy where the candidate had an offer or a rejection (with reason) before they left the office. It was hard turning folks down, and it pushed us to have very crisp reasons for saying no, but I think it made us better interviewers and more humane in the process.

The word humane is rarely used, most times in the context of "humane slaughter of farm animals" and now in "humane interview process."

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#409

Post by coffeebeqn »

bradley13 wrote: post #6

Insane. I don't change jobs often (last time was 15 years ago), but the last two both worked pretty much the same: application, weeding interview, serious interview, decision. I've also sat on the other side, and we ran it the same way. I can imagine a huge company throwing a third interview in there, because HR has to justify its existence, but more than that is abusive and - more importantly - useless. Actually cou…

I applied at Canonical at one point and withdrew my application after it became a kafkaesque experience. They wanted me to do a “psychometric” evaluation at which point I had seen enough of their.. culture ?

Funnily the engineer who was responsible for the application also sent a very bureaucratic sounding email acknowledging my withdrawal.

I can’t imagine their process for interviews doesn’t reflect what working there would be like - if it doesn’t then they really need to fix their pipeline

Re: Canonical’s recruitment process is long and complex

#410

Post by coffeebeqn »

Tade0 wrote: post #150
throw16180339 wrote: post #131

This process isn't accidentally awful; it's deliberately targeted to exclude anyone who isn't a young true believer.

I got a whiff from the gaming industry off of it, so I second that sentiment.

Gaming engineering interviews are generally much better than general tech? Shorter, more applicable to day-to-day work, etc.

My main problem is the uncompetitive pay

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