Ubuntu veteran rage-quits to Windows after Canonical’s 20-page Rust interview task
Description
Screenshot of a tweet on a black Twitter UI. The profile picture is blurred, the name reads “Dmitrii Kovanikov” with a blue-check badge, handle @ChShersh. Tweet text: “I had been using Ubuntu for 10 years. Last year, I applied to Canonical for a job to develop Ubuntu itself in Rust. Before the interview, they asked me to write a 20-page essay about my life, aspirations, philosophy and whatnot. Anyway, this is my desktop now.” Beneath the text is an image of a pristine Windows 11 desktop: light-blue gradient background with the default abstract blue swirl wallpaper and centered taskbar icons. The humor hinges on a decade-long Linux user abandoning Ubuntu for Windows after an over-engineered hiring requirement, highlighting pain around interview bureaucracy, OS loyalty, and Rust hype
Comments
26Comment deleted
Canonical wanted a 20-page personal manifesto; he responded with the ultimate exit command: `sudo apt-get install windows-11`
After a decade of sudo apt-get install, they asked for a 20-page philosophical treatise on life aspirations - turns out the real package dependency was Microsoft Office to write that essay. Sometimes the best way to contribute to open source is knowing when to close the terminal
After a decade of evangelizing Ubuntu and preaching the Linux gospel, this developer was asked to write a 20-page philosophical treatise just to interview for rewriting Ubuntu in Rust. The punchline? They're now running Windows 11. It's the ultimate 'you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain' moment - except here, the villain is the hiring process that drove a loyal Linux advocate straight into Microsoft's arms. Nothing says 'we value your time and expertise' quite like demanding a novella about your life aspirations before even discussing the technical role. The real systems programming challenge wasn't memory safety in Rust - it was surviving Canonical's interview gauntlet without questioning your entire OS allegiance
Canonical's hiring demands borrow-checking your entire life before Rust even compiles
Hiring CAP theorem: choose Consistency (20‑page process) or Availability (candidates); Canonical chose consistency - partition happened, client rerouted to Windows
Canonical wanted a 20-page autobiography before the technical interview; Windows only wanted a one-click EULA - turns out hiring pipeline backpressure is a stronger migration strategy than any package manager
Wsl2 zaebis Comment deleted
dudes I just found that win11 provides a built-in sudo command yesterday… Comment deleted
if the command doesn't run stuff as NT\SYSTEM by default it's not exactly sudo Comment deleted
well... C:\Users\NexonSU>sudo devmgmt.msc Unknown error: %1 is not a valid Win32 application. (0x800700C1) Comment deleted
msc files are just configs. Why should they be executable themselves, without OpenDocument or another similar shell-level wrapper? Comment deleted
plot twist: he is actually using zorin OS Comment deleted
Plot twist: he promotes ALT Linux. Comment deleted
wait, twitter has alt text now? Comment deleted
when did they add that? Comment deleted
Ages ago I think Comment deleted
April 2022 google says Comment deleted
huh. damn Comment deleted
Hiring at Ubuntu is a weeeeiiird cult Comment deleted
self reflection experience from job interview interesting Comment deleted
Unity sucks Comment deleted
they say never meet your heroes Comment deleted
I applied to canonical. I wrote the essay. Then I took the IQ test, and the reaction test. I took 5 hours of interviews. I did a take home project with Juju, their extremely shit deployment system. And finallly after all that, which took 2-3 months, I got to meet the hiring manager. Comment deleted
And he offered me half what I was making at the time Comment deleted
I wished him good luck with his next useless rewrite of the installer and hung up Comment deleted
Wow, I know nothing now Comment deleted