I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Canonical (Dubai) in Dec 2024
Interview
They ask lots of questions to reply by email, and you spend hours on that. after that they send a test and they decide the process. they should send the test at first not to waste peoples time to replying the question.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Sales experience
Sales team behaviour
Infrastructure and application sales
I applied online. The process took 6 months. I interviewed at Canonical (Atlanta, GA) in Jan 2024
Interview
The process was 6 months long from application to rejection. It starting off by me applying to the role online which was straight forward.
My profile was reviewed by the hiring manager (my direct report) and he selected me for the written interview. I liked the written interview format as it allowed me to understand what they were looking for in the role. I enjoyed writing my response back (yes, some questions were about high school which I have never encountered before). I didn't get a response back for 2 months after this. What followed were a couple of assessment tests (psychological and intelligence). After all this, I finally met the first person at the company. What followed were 3 to for more sales related interviews and everyone I spoke to was great and they liked me too.
After this came executive interviews where I spoke to sales leads from all of their business divisions. I got an emphatic "yes" from everyone and also discussed compensation for the role with my hiring manager. All in all, I had 11 interviews and outside of interviews, I was also asked to have 3 to 4 casual conversations.
My final interview was with the CEO. This did not go well. What threw me off was him asking about my parents and what they did (which I thought was too personal and unnecessary) and also asking me why I decided to move countries for education (he wanted to see why I made the choice). I didn't quite get the relevance here as people move for various reasons. He then asked me a technical question which I did not answer well at all and I blame myself for it. He concluded that I didn't understand the business well enough and the interview ended in half the time.
The Good: The hiring manager reviews your resume. You get to speak to a lot of great folks. The written interview, while tedious, is great for understanding the role. The ratings on glassdoor do not reflect the people who work there and their great endevour.
The bad: The process was too long (6 months). The requirement to ask about high school and questions about my parents felt too intrusive into my personal life. If I'm dedicating time to 14 separate conversations, the assessment for selection has to be based on all those conversations and not merely the CEO. This makes it a very poor process. I blame myself for not answer one question well and I should have thought through what the CEO was looking for.
I feel that any company that spends 6 months for assessing a single candidate for 1 role will find it very difficult to hire the right folks.
I still think the people are great and would have loved to join. Their emphasis on open source is really refreshing and the CEO's vision around this is commendable.