Good money, remote from all countries, weird evaluation system - Software Engineer II Canonical Employee Review

4.0
Nov 27, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Salary ranges are high, at least in Europe. Although they are moving to a compensation system which aims to normalise this. I.e. they want all engineers to be able to buy 500 cheesburgers per month, how much does this cost in their country? This kind of thing. The remote culture and that the whole company meets every 6 months is really awesome and you get to meet and interact with so many fantastic people. There are a lot of processes in place and rigor.

Cons

Sometimes it feels the we are developing software in a bubble. The evaluation system is weird, in which you get evaluated by your peers and 10% every year is out. This is turning more and more into a popularity contest, where teams are inclined to put good reviews on everyone, so that they don't lose members. And this keeps creating a positivity inflation in reviews

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
Jan 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

> Highly visible open source company > O.K. pay and benefits > Twice yearly trips to interesting locations > Intelligent and mostly caring colleagues > Getting to put Canonical on your resume will help your career

Cons

> Toxic leadership style trickles down to the middle management. They're ruthless and single-minded (and extremely intelligent) at the top, and those seem to be the traits that get people promoted. The promotion process is also hilariously involved, and if you don't perform they'll demote you. > Insane interview process - mine took something like four months to complete, represented like 40+ hours of my time, and was considered average. > Twice yearly trips for grueling weeklong sprints. > The company only hires the best so, if you're used to being very good at your job, here you'll only be average at best. > Stack ranking - bottom X% of employees after each biannual review are placed on a PIP. > From what I saw, there are no "personality hires". Morale is expected to be derived solely from the company-paid work trips and the experience of getting paid to create open source software. Maybe this is unavoidable for full-remote companies, but it gets gloomy. > The video-on calls with your team and other teams will take up several hours of every single day, good luck finding time to actually get your work done during the day.

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