What are perks and other benefits like at Canonical?

The usual modern company benefits: work from home, regular travel, developer conferences (if you are interested), pay is reasonable

The review system is lauded internally as very sophisticated (I heard that the CEO tried to make money from it somehow) and occurs every six months, which I find too frequent. It is anxiety-producing because you're evaluated by many people in the company, potentially from anyone, even those who have no idea what you actually do. The result is a collection of anonymous dots on a graph, grouped by category of peers. If you somehow end up in the bottom portion of the graph the company policy is for your manager to put you on the dreaded "PIP" (Professional Improvement Plan"). If you refuse you will be let go with a run-of-the-mill severance package. If you accept, and succeed (after six months), you will stay on to live another day. If you accept and fail you will be let go without severance. Many people I've talked to in the company have figured out that the system does not give accurate results. Either there is corruption due to quid-quo-pro agreements, or there is deliberate malicious poisoning from colleagues who do not like you personally, or simple popularity contest results, or worse of all, good results are ignored, even when those results are provided by one's own manager. One person got good results on the graph, and even specifically from their own manager yet a few weeks later was presented with the described ultimatum. Then there are the ones that are personally liked by Directors yet whose work is bland and end up getting significant salary hikes or having special roles created for them. This company becomes stranger and stranger as it moves closer to its IPO. It's to be avoided if you are at all sensitive to a bad employee compensation system. However, if you believe yourself to be a "top performer" then you may like it very much here as the company cherishes "technical champions". Personally I find it all very tiresome and unprofessional. I don't see myself still here in two years time.

Friendly and supportive team Lots of autonomy

The company has become hyper focused on implementing policies and changes in ways which have no clear goal or benefit. Often such processes are updated last minute with little to no effective communication. Product has no focus, segments are developed for 6-12 months before the next initiative starts and then the half baked product decays. Quality suffers. Internal processes mean people are stuck with busy work which again has no clear value for the effort put in. Little to no time to invest in personal development the more senior you get. Burnout culture is fast becoming a badge of honour internally, along with undermining your colleagues or other teams.

Decent Salary and friendly colleagues

Just the basic benefits nothing spectacular

Opportunity to work on opensource projects Fully remote

* Spineless management - managers, directors, VPs...none of them have any real power to do anything, and they're solely focused on keeping their job/salary intact; they will let the CEO and HR destroy and humiliate their teams and won't stand up for their teams no matter how unfair their teams are treated * CEO's approval is required for even for the tiniest of the decisions - the company is essentially his toy * No real pay raises - even talk of it is seen as a Bad Thing (otherwise would be stamped as "cultural misfit", lack of "passion" for the job, and so on) * Stack-ranking of employees twice a year, which is nothing but a popularity contest and pseudoscience at best; the bottom ~10% will be PIPed out; bottom 20% won't get any bonus/payraise (but even higher rating wouldn't get anything meaningful) * Graduates and Associates will be fired if they fail promotion within a year * HR operate with an iron-fist - no disagreements are allowed (either will be ignored completely or fired silently) * Zero career progression - management will use any excuse to reject promotion (because "we are better than everyone else, and know better than everyone else in the world") * The company encourages and rewards "heroes" who become bottlenecks, dominate decision-making and take-over every meeting * Very high attrition rate circa 20-30% (due to toxic work environment, high workload, 10% PIP+termination every 6 months, random firing, and so on) * Insane hiring process - takes months, only the very desperate put up with that as good ones typically get better offers elsewhere & quickly too * Long hours, high pressure & toxic work environment which can't be fixed with a couple "well-being webinars" they organise - it's as if the company hates its employees! * Involuntary time-off twice a year (one in Aug and one in Dec, 10 days each, 20 days of PTOs prebooked per year!) * Employees spend considerable time in the recruitment process for which there's no benefit (not counted towards 360) and as such the regular work suffers and had to be completed overnight or weekends * CEO surrounds himself with yes-men. He thinks those leave Canonical are those not "aligned" with his vision, and those stay share his vision. But the reality is, the vast majority of the senior management who stay are sycophants who always "support" and praise him so that they can get by comfortably and stay out of friction for their job/pay and mental health It used to be a benevolent opensource company, but there's nothing "Ubuntu" about Canonical today. It's a ruthless Corporation which milks the opensource Community and FOSS while contributing barely anything back and treat employees with complete mistrust and like slaves. A toxic culture driven by fear, PIPs, threats and passive-aggression (HR head is from Amazon!).

> 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

> 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.

A name to put in your cv that shows you have good guts and, depending on what your role was, good hard skills.

Stressful environment, chaotic planning, presence of rude people seems accepted, absence of agility and good processes, lack of good people management and real career growth opportunities, CEO dependant environment, met some fearful employees and many others. As a personal opinion, it was a toxic environment that didn't justify the potential benefits. You can be left home anytime and with no apparent reason, as it happened to some people I directly worked with.

- Being surrounded by great and smart people - Great work-life balance and culture - Advanced technical stack

- Benefits are lacking mainly because of the company being a fully remote one

- ICs are almost always great people. - Depending on your background you learn a lot. - Salary and benefits almost always match and even exceed local companies. - Fully remote since 2004 and always will be. - Travel.

- Teams are chronically underfilled and roadmaps are chronically overcommitted. - Depending on the team, you can be a one person startup with all the responsibilities you have. - Work is inefficient. It is hard to deliver on things here. Some people work the evenings to work without interruptions. - Performance reviews are a black-box and based on people's feelings. But they are a gate to your raises, bonuses, and promotions. - Company stance shifted against the employee during the post-pandemic crash. - Travel becomes a chore.