
My interview experience with Canonical - marvinpinto
http://redbluemagenta.com/2018/01/05/my-interview-experience-with-canonical/
======
rboyd
I think the guy was just priced out.

Companies ought to be more upfront about their salary bands. It's pretty
unreasonable to have candidates jump through a phone screen, complete a
homework assignment, then travel to come meet in person for the whiteboard
pain session before they know if a company can even afford them. I see more
companies getting this right lately but we have a way to go.

Otherwise, it can be a huge waste of everyone's time. In this case it sounds
like whoever negotiated didn't even have authority to make a deal, which is a
pretty big flub on Canonical's part.

The other possibility is that one of the interviewers didn't get feedback in
before the negotiation. That would still be a process fail.

A good developer/SRE should basically be able to justify her expense and
essentially write her own check, splitting the value capture with the host
company. Things are way off and asymmetric in the current hiring practice.

Thanks for posting. It's understandable to be upset here. More companies with
bad interview processes should be outed so that they can improve and the rest
of us don't have to discover them on our own.

~~~
bogomipz
>"A good developer/SRE should basically be able to justify her expense and
essentially write her own check, splitting the value capture with the host
company. Things are way off and asymmetric in the current hiring practice."

I was curious what you meant by "splitting the value capture with the host
company." Similarly I would be interested in where you see asymmetry in the
hiring process.

~~~
insomniacity
Not OP, but they likely meant that a developer or SRE can be a force
multiplier that delivers value far in excess of salary and costs.

For example, if I produce value to the company of 400k/year, whther that's in
new development, or optimising/supporting existing systems, and they incur
costs of 50k/year in hiring me, then the 350k is up for discussion in terms of
the distribution between salary/bonus and remaining with the company to
reflect risk and capital etc.

That said, this calculation applies to most value-generating employees in most
industries - techies, and HN in particular, are just more explicit in
discussing it.

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guelo
Probably a bad professional move for him to write this post and burn those
bridges. It's suspicious that he didn't describe the execs interview. Normally
when I've had a good technical interview the execs interview feels like just a
formality, or it turns into them selling me on the company. The one time I saw
a higher up override the technical manager was when the exec had a bias
against consultants. Canonical being an open source company I imagine that
more wishy-washy "values" criteria are given more weight.

~~~
Cau5tik
Bridge burning is never a good professional move, and the author goes out of
his way to be rude about it. I'm not sure what positive effect they thought
this would have.

Based on this post I can't say I'd want to work with the author either.

~~~
programmer_dude
I think it is a good thing he wrote this piece. It is better to go into an
interview knowing about possible negative outcomes. I wouldn't mind working
with people who speak their mind. Actually I prefer it.

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makecheck
Do not _ever_ take an action (such as rejecting other offers) based on a
verbal/provisional/anything. Only a letter in hand is any good, and even then
you should probably respond quickly if you plan to accept.

~~~
ealexhudson
I've never heard of a "provisional offer" in the UK market - this would be
highly unusual.

I don't know if Canonical is culturally UK, but maybe there was a
misunderstanding about the stage of the process they had reached?

~~~
astura
Im not sure about elsewhere, but in the US, at least in my experience, a
"provisional offer" is an offer that's contingent on one or more specific
condition, usually something like "pass your background check" or "pass your
drug test," or "references check out," or "you prove you are legally entitled
to work." These are things you won't usually put a potential hire through
unless you've both agreed upon employment and salary.

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gtf21
> never interview at Canonical, never work for them, don't even entertain the
> idea of seeing yourself getting a paycheck while working on tools that
> seemingly have zero traction outside of Canonical

All this vitriol seems like an over-strong reaction to an executive panel
rescinding his offer. Canonical should definitely have been clear about the
entire process up-front, but making decisions before you have a full
confirmation doesn't seem sensible.

When we hire we send out an offer letter after all the interviews are done,
but that offer is explicitly still contingent on right-to-work checks and
satisfactory references. This is normally a formality but there's always a
chance something might go wrong.

~~~
mentat
If you look at his work history on LinkedIn, I can see why there would be an
issue. Many jobs held less than a year. That's not a pattern anyone wants to
hire.

~~~
cparedes
Yeah - I'm still looking for that job fit. Takes a while sometimes.

~~~
Twirrim
Problem is, if I'm looking at hiring you I'm not sure if I'm going to get my
money's worth. Hiring is not cheap, plus there's the ramp up time, and the
impact on other people's performance while you're ramping up.

If your work history shows you're not likely to stick around for a couple of
years, that will count against you in any consideration.

Some times you need to make decisions about how much crap you'll put up with,
so that your job history makes you more marketable.

Your resume / work history is one of the _first things_ a recruiter or hiring
manager will see about you. It has to speak for you on what kind of employee
you are, and you have to assume they're going to take it the worst way.

~~~
mentat
I got asked a lot of hard questions in recent round of interviews about the
one gap out of a history that's quite long. Haunts you if you don't have a
good story up front.

~~~
expertentipp
The same applies to short periods of employment. Take your time during
updating the CV to create convincing language-neutral explanation, because
„they were among the stingiest cheapskates in this part of the continent”, or
„their codebase was monumental dried pile of Java” will not work in your
favor.

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rileymat2
> instead of getting a stipend for a work laptop you'd ordinarily have to hand
> in after leaving the company, you instead get an interest-free loan that's
> spread over the course of 3 months that's used to pay for your equipment and
> whatever else you need for your remote work space.

I am missing why this is better in any way.

~~~
CoolGuySteve
I never understood why company's don't just give you the equipment, to keep,
forever.

A laptop/monitor/chair/etc is a trivial expense compared to the person's
salary and you don't end up with a bunch of random weird ergonomic devices
floating around from the ghosts of employees past.

~~~
outside1234
"to keep, forever" <\-- they would need to include this on your W2, versus the
current situation where it is depreciated equipment over 3 years or whatever.

~~~
stock_toaster
Personally, I woud be fine with that. I think they could even call it a
"signing bonus". From what I understand, some signing bonuses are even
contingent upon your staying for at least a specified period of time, or you
have to pay it back.

~~~
mobilefriendly
You don't understand the tax implications, you'd have to pay income and
payroll taxes on the laptop, depending on your marginal rate that could cost
you an additional 40% of the cost of the laptop. And the company would pay
payroll taxes on it as well. Versus the company buying it as their property
and being able to fully deduct it over time.

~~~
stock_toaster
So people don't ever get signing bonuses either then, right? Gotcha.

ps. Don't assume that people don't understand something just because they
don't hold your opinion.

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jonathonf
If this is to be taken at face-value I'd view it as "poor show" on Canonical's
part. An offer of employment was made and later rescinded. However, while a
"provisional" offer might seem unusual, from a UK-perspective it would
normally be down to things like eligiblity-to-work, ID checks, and references
(a "provisional offer based on satisfactory references" is quite normal).

I'm not sure if the author would say, or know, the reason _why_ the offer was
rescinded, but, on face-value, it presents Canonical's HR and recruitment
process quite poorly.

On the other hand, if Canonical requested and could not get references, or
references were negative, the offer would quite understandably be withdrawn.

From the article, all we know is that Canonical advertised a position, the
author was provisionally offered the position, then Canonical withdrew the
provisional offer.

~~~
stuaxo
There should always be transparency in this kind of situation, so that - at
the very least, the person can address the issue going into the next
interview.

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blaisio
If you need a job, why would you reject other offers before accepting an offer
from someone? That really doesn't make sense...

~~~
justin66
You can get into a situation where you have multiple offers you need to decide
upon at the same time. It's not entirely ethical to say "yes" to all of them,
although one lesson here is that you have not _really_ said yes to an offer
until you sign.

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lafar6502
Why would anyone associate his name forever with a failure or problems?
Internet will not forget and all kinds of people will search and find it and
have some fucking stupid ideas. Im missing the time when job was a job and
nobody gave a fuck about what you did five years ago or who are your friends
and relatives.

