Ubuntu Engineering Lead
Level inferred from job title
Job description
Engineering leadership roles (managers and Senior+ engineers) across Canonical's Ubuntu Engineering organisation, accountable for a technical roadmap and for leading, coaching and developing engineering teams. The role sits within one of four Ubuntu teams: Foundations, Server, Desktop or Debcrafters.
At a glance
- Employment
- Full-time · Employee (employment agreement)
- Work mode
- Remote · Worldwide
- Languages
- English – fluent
What you'll do
- Leading their teams in elevating the Linux developer and user experience
- Designing, building and shipping high quality, performant software in Rust, Go and Python
- Demonstrating sound engineering principles through architecture, development and code reviews
- Taking responsibility for planning, estimation and execution
- Working with product management to define the vision and strategy for Ubuntu
- Setting expectations with other engineering teams, senior management, and external stakeholders
- Offering coaching, mentoring, technical feedback and hands-on career development
- Contributing to upstream and neighboring open source projects
- Optimizing the distribution for performance, reliability, and security
- Debugging complex system-level issues and delivering robust solutions
- Authoring and improving technical and community documentation
What we're looking for
- An exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
- Undergraduate degree in Computer Science or STEM, or a compelling narrative about your alternative path
- Ability to drive and deliver technical work streams going above and beyond expectations
- Lead and coach others to deliver exceptional engineering work
- A demonstrated passion for open source software
- Significant experience with Rust, Go, Python, Flutter or C/C++
- Professional written and spoken English
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Result-oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments
- Ability to travel twice a year, for company events up to two weeks each
- Technical leadership experience and a background in software engineering
Nice to have
- Experience contributing to or leading open source projects
- Experience with Linux distributions/distribution engineering
- Experience with software packaging and distribution mechanisms
- Performance or Security Engineering experience
Your team
Ubuntu Engineering (Foundations, Server, Desktop, Debcrafters)
The four key teams that ship Ubuntu: Foundations maintains foundational software: architectures, package managers, compilers, toolchains, bootloaders, filesystems and core utilities; Server leads the design, evolution and future of the Ubuntu Server distribution; Desktop drives Ubuntu Desktop, the future immutable desktop: Ubuntu Core Desktop, WSL, gaming technology, and a suite of modern applications crafted with Flutter; Debcrafters is a new team responsible for the forward movement, maintenan
Benefits
- Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person
- Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year
- Annual compensation review
- Recognition rewards
- Annual holiday leave
- Maternity and paternity leave
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues
- Priority Pass, and travel upgrades for long haul company events
- Performance-driven annual bonus
How to get hired
- 1First round of interviews to identify specific teams where you might be an excellent fit
- 2Second-round interviews with those teams
Apply
About Canonical
A leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets
Canonical publishes Ubuntu, one of the most important open source projects and the platform for AI, IoT and the cloud. It is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1200+ colleagues in 75+ countries and very few office based roles. The company is founder led, profitable and growing, and has been remote-first since its inception in 2004.
Mission
To be at the forefront of the global move to open source, changing the world on a daily basis through Ubuntu, the platform for AI, IoT and the cloud
Key facts
- 1200+ colleagues
- 2004
- Open source software and operating systems
- Publishes Ubuntu, the world's most deployed open source operating system
- 1200+ colleagues in 75+ countries
- Remote-first company since its inception in 2004
- Founder led and profitable
- Teams meet two to four times yearly in person
What they value
- Excellence
- Open source
- Global distributed collaboration
- Fairness globally