Canonical Under Attack(status.canonical.com)
56 pointsby ta9887 hours ago2 comments
  • gnabgib7 hours ago
    Discussion yesterday (194 points, 63 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47972213

    Related: Pro-Iran crew turns DDoS into shakedown as Ubuntu.com stays down (80 points, 78 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47975729

  • cynicalsecurity6 hours ago
    I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago.

    Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo".

    Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work.

    Think twice next time you hire people, Canonical. People without a degree, but with extensive experience you rejected might have prevented this situation in the first place.

    I'm not connected with this DDoS attack in any way, just in case, but I remember their arrogant hiring attitude and now it's amusing to see the outcome of it.

    • dmoy6 hours ago
      > Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo".

      Man that like barely scratches the surface of the surrealness of canonical's hiring process

      • danbmil994 hours ago
        You can say that again. I went through a 50-75 hour process of interviews, leet-code exams (with tight pencil-down timing), culminating with a long-form project that they budgeted 4 hours for (took me 20+).

        I finally had a brain fart in the umpteenth interview and was not offered a job.

        Cray cray

        • dd8601fn3 hours ago
          I can’t help wonder what kind of people end up being hired in places like that.

          Geniuses like I’ve never even met? Weirdly hyper-specialized types? Ambitious con artists?

          Maybe friends of current employees get to skip the BS gauntlet?

          • bitfilped36 minutes ago
            The over ambitious and underperforming, might be a good indication of why they can't keep a website up :)
      • rbanffy4 hours ago
        I don’t remember it as particularly surreal. They did a remote programming interview over Zoom (in 2014 or so) and it was a really interesting problem - to make a PRNG for a specific range of integers using two other PRNGs. Their solution had a branch and mine was branchless and decently random. It was, at least then, a very personalistic company, centred around Shuttleworth, but his influence didn’t usually extend more than two org levels, and different parts of it behaved as different companies.
        • dmoy4 hours ago
          I don't think the specific individual technical interviews are the surreal part about canonical's hiring process
      • bitfilped39 minutes ago
        No to mention the absolutely absurd questions they ask. I looked at a sr position there and they were asking about performance in individual courses _in high school._ I haven't been in school for 20 years. I've learned and forgotten so many things since then, like I'm going to remember or care what I did in econ 101 multiple decades ago... It was so silly I didn't bother applying.
      • Diti5 hours ago
        I remember reading an article describing Canonical’s predatory hiring practices, but I can’t find it any more. Do you have sources?
    • jbm5 hours ago
      This is surprising. Has Canonical built something recently that requires "math geniuses with top grades at school"?

      The last time I remember using any of their software was Unity. I'm not a Unity hater, but where is the headcount going?

    • an hour ago
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    • kinow5 hours ago
      Yeah, I considered applying once, but saw others online saying their process was long and outdated. In my case, I applied anyway, but during the screen call I asked if I would have to use Ubuntu even if I didn't use, and also their new (at that time) Juju for all tasks, even if that wasn't the best tool for the job. The position was related to automation of services. They told me I would to use both Ubuntu and Juju, and I couldn't use other tools if those two worked, which I understand, but I thought being stuck using Juju probably wouldn't help my career after a few years.
      • rbanffy4 hours ago
        > They told me I would to use both Ubuntu and Juju, and I couldn't use other tools if those two worked

        Dogfooding is a valid strategy to improve their product, but you’d be heavily invested in Juju’s success.

        • captn3m03 hours ago
          Seeing as how Canonical launched several Kubernetes products, this strategy didn’t survive for long.
    • noosphr5 hours ago
      This is quite reasonable compared to the rest of the process.

      I thought I was catfished by North Korea when after the third round of requirements was sent.

    • 6 hours ago
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    • ohnei5 hours ago
      I find this take a bit silly. There are perhaps a dozen companies that could put as complex a surface out as Ubuntu has and actually expect to defend against any sort of sustained interest from a nation state. Canonical absolutely could have made better decisions in the design of many things for this situation but doing that as a corporation that isn't under attack is extremely hard when no one wants long delays for theoreticals.