Interesting work, terrible management - Software Engineer Canonical Employee Review

1.0
Jun 21, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Canonical is a great place to work if you don't have to interact with upper management. Good managers will do what they can to protect their team. With that comes engaging work on products used across the industry. Contributing to software that is improving the broader Linux ecosystem is very rewarding. Health care benefits in particular are very good.

Cons

The CEO and CTO are truly awful. They both micromanage the company to death. It is not uncommon to have meetings where literally every person on the team agrees that something is terrible, and so somebody asks why don't we fix it, and the answer is that the CEO or CTO has dictated it. The CEO will hijack planning meetings so that some minor feature of some minor product looks exactly the way he wants it to rather than how an engineer or PM designed it. It is not uncommon to see the CTO engaging in flame wars on Twitter and mailing lists. The company has recently added a new hiring process that requires things like writing multipage essays with questions going back to high school, along with IQ tests and personality tests. Candidates can make it through the entire months-long process only to be rejected at the very end by the CEO who hasn't even talked to them. Even though a large portion of the company has raised objections to this process, senior leadership refuses to listen or change course.

Explore other reviews about Canonical

5.0
Apr 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

very good. happy so far

Cons

could be better, like the time of application to final round

2.0
May 23, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Met some interesting people, had some interesting conversations.

Cons

Was constantly hearing bad stories about upper management. I only experienced the CEO expressing minor annoyance and paranoia a couple of times. My line manager always seemed to be treading water, fixated on dev-ops ceremonies, and didn't respect the opinions of his peers. The guy who was the "expert" for my field practised management by spreadsheet and was completely out of his depth, always obsessing about his approach to the work and inflicting his opinion on everyone else. Spent too much time having to plan for travel or hear about everyone's travel plans. Wasted so much time in the company's ongoing recruitment drive which pushes most of the work of interviewing and filtering candidates onto regular employees.

3
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