alt Hacker NewsI 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.
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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.
If they're so bright and capable why can't they patch their OS?
> 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.
> 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?