Yes, I do want to work with people who are passionate about what we do.
It makes for more interesting meetings, more interesting ideas, more interesting software. I love what I do, and I choose to set things up to maximise the chance that the people around me are equally excited about what impact we could have in the world.
Life is short, the way I want to use it is to help people who contribute to open source - all open source - have the biggest possible impact from their generosity. By making open source easy and cheap to consume and rely on in production, I think we amplify the contributions of others, and I feel very good about that. We also try to innovate on pieces of the landscape, and those are fun too.
But you may be confusing the first step of our hiring process - the written interview - with the whole of the process.
If someone does well on the written interview, which is usually twice-assessed and done so on an anonymous basis, they get additional screening tests and interviews to assess professionalism and experience and competence, which helps us place them in the best part of the company for them. It also helps them learn about us and how we work to make sure that they are making the right choice for the next segment of their career.
In the past I think we over-prioritised passion-for-Linux relative to competence, and we paid a price for that. So now I'm pretty focused on looking for both, and ensuring discipline in the offers we make across the whole company.
Thanks for answering this, and it definitely makes a lot of sense. Last paragraph is an interesting tidbit.
My original point was in the sense that passion can also cause a bit of tunnel vision. On the other hand I certainly can't say Canonical isn't innovative.
It makes for more interesting meetings, more interesting ideas, more interesting software. I love what I do, and I choose to set things up to maximise the chance that the people around me are equally excited about what impact we could have in the world.
Life is short, the way I want to use it is to help people who contribute to open source - all open source - have the biggest possible impact from their generosity. By making open source easy and cheap to consume and rely on in production, I think we amplify the contributions of others, and I feel very good about that. We also try to innovate on pieces of the landscape, and those are fun too.
But you may be confusing the first step of our hiring process - the written interview - with the whole of the process.
If someone does well on the written interview, which is usually twice-assessed and done so on an anonymous basis, they get additional screening tests and interviews to assess professionalism and experience and competence, which helps us place them in the best part of the company for them. It also helps them learn about us and how we work to make sure that they are making the right choice for the next segment of their career.
In the past I think we over-prioritised passion-for-Linux relative to competence, and we paid a price for that. So now I'm pretty focused on looking for both, and ensuring discipline in the offers we make across the whole company.