Lots of companies have standardized and well documented interview processes.

canonical’s is indeed a disaster, it’s onerous for applicants (hey that simplified outline doesn’t say it but you can expect between five and fourteen interviews - seriously I know applicants who had fourteen interviews).

Another thing it doesn’t mention is the fact that there’s really no dedicated hiring and interviewing team at Canonical - all engineering teams “pitch in” (read: are forced to) with resume and written interview reviews, as well as in-person interviews.

This wastes a tremendous amount of expensive engineering time, and a lot of this is due to poorly screened resumes. It was very frequent for me to interview a candidate and wonder how they made it to that stage when it was clear from looking at the resume during interview prep that they were totally unsuited for the role.

Source: former Canonical who like everyone else, was forced to “participate” in the hiring process.

10 Steps are about 7 too many.

Writing a Personal Essay after, what sounds like, an automated email is not something I would consider as a good interview process.

For most software companies no. For top software companies... I might do it. The problem is with NoName companies that think they are Google or in this case Canonical.

I personally wouldn't bother for basically anyone. Even Jane Street isn't this arduous.