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Canonical Under Attack

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Re: Canonical Under Attack

#11

Post by jbm »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #3

I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago. Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work. Think twice next time you hire pe…

This is surprising. Has Canonical built something recently that requires "math geniuses with top grades at school"?

The last time I remember using any of their software was Unity. I'm not a Unity hater, but where is the headcount going?

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#12

Post by noosphr »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #3

I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago. Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work. Think twice next time you hire pe…

This is quite reasonable compared to the rest of the process.

I thought I was catfished by North Korea when after the third round of requirements was sent.

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#13

Post by ohnei »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #3

I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago. Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work. Think twice next time you hire pe…

I find this take a bit silly. There are perhaps a dozen companies that could put as complex a surface out as Ubuntu has and actually expect to defend against any sort of sustained interest from a nation state. Canonical absolutely could have made better decisions in the design of many things for this situation but doing that as a corporation that isn't under attack is extremely hard when no one wants long delays for theoreticals.

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#14

Post by rbanffy »

dmoy wrote: post #4
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #3

I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago. Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work. Think twice next time you hire pe…

> Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Man that like barely scratches the surface of the surrealness of canonical's hiring process

I don’t remember it as particularly surreal. They did a remote programming interview over Zoom (in 2014 or so) and it was a really interesting problem - to make a PRNG for a specific range of integers using two other PRNGs. Their solution had a branch and mine was branchless and decently random. It was, at least then, a very personalistic company, centred around Shuttleworth, but his influence didn’t usually extend more than two org levels, and different parts of it behaved as different companies.

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#15

Post by rbanffy »

kinow wrote: post #10
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #3

I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago. Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work. Think twice next time you hire pe…

Yeah, I considered applying once, but saw others online saying their process was long and outdated. In my case, I applied anyway, but during the screen call I asked if I would have to use Ubuntu even if I didn't use, and also their new (at that time) Juju for all tasks, even if that wasn't the best tool for the job. The position was related to automation of services. They told me I would to use both Ubuntu and Juju,…

> They told me I would to use both Ubuntu and Juju, and I couldn't use other tools if those two worked

Dogfooding is a valid strategy to improve their product, but you’d be heavily invested in Juju’s success.

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#16

Post by danbmil99 »

dmoy wrote: post #4
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #3

I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago. Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work. Think twice next time you hire pe…

> Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Man that like barely scratches the surface of the surrealness of canonical's hiring process

You can say that again. I went through a 50-75 hour process of interviews, leet-code exams (with tight pencil-down timing), culminating with a long-form project that they budgeted 4 hours for (took me 20+).

I finally had a brain fart in the umpteenth interview and was not offered a job.

Cray cray

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#17

Post by dmoy »

rbanffy wrote: post #14
dmoy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Man that like barely scratches the surface of the surrealness of canonical's hiring process

I don’t remember it as particularly surreal. They did a remote programming interview over Zoom (in 2014 or so) and it was a really interesting problem - to make a PRNG for a specific range of integers using two other PRNGs. Their solution had a branch and mine was branchless and decently random. It was, at least then, a very personalistic company, centred around Shuttleworth, but his influence didn’t usually extend m…

I don't think the specific individual technical interviews are the surreal part about canonical's hiring process

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#18

Post by captn3m0 »

rbanffy wrote: post #15
kinow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I considered applying once, but saw others online saying their process was long and outdated. In my case, I applied anyway, but during the screen call I asked if I would have to use Ubuntu even if I didn't use, and also their new (at that time) Juju for all tasks, even if that wasn't the best tool for the job. The position was related to automation of services. They told me I would to use both Ubuntu and Juju,…

> They told me I would to use both Ubuntu and Juju, and I couldn't use other tools if those two worked Dogfooding is a valid strategy to improve their product, but you’d be heavily invested in Juju’s success.

Seeing as how Canonical launched several Kubernetes products, this strategy didn’t survive for long.

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#19

Post by dd8601fn »

danbmil99 wrote: post #16
dmoy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Man that like barely scratches the surface of the surrealness of canonical's hiring process

You can say that again. I went through a 50-75 hour process of interviews, leet-code exams (with tight pencil-down timing), culminating with a long-form project that they budgeted 4 hours for (took me 20+). I finally had a brain fart in the umpteenth interview and was not offered a job. Cray cray

I can’t help wonder what kind of people end up being hired in places like that.

Geniuses like I’ve never even met? Weirdly hyper-specialized types? Ambitious con artists?

Maybe friends of current employees get to skip the BS gauntlet?

Re: Canonical Under Attack

#20

Post by [deleted] »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #3

I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago. Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo". Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work. Think twice next time you hire pe…

[deleted]
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