Software Engineering Manager – Container and Virtualisation Infrastructure

Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets. Our platform, Ubuntu, is very widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation, and IoT. Our customers include the world’s leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors. The company is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1200+ colleagues in 75+ countries and very few office-based roles. Teams meet two to four times yearly in person, in interesting locations around the world, to align on strategy and execution.

The company is founder-led, profitable, and growing.

Our mission is to build a next-generation private cloud infrastructure, combining KVM, Ceph, and SDN technologies to create a data center scale cloud that ‘just works’ and provides a mission-critical cloud for edge and core enterprise deployments. We’re hiring engineering managers with experience in high-quality microservice architectures and high-performance team leadership who also have deep familiarity with Linux kernel, virtualisation, storage and networking.

LXD components span the entire software stack from low-level kernel features to the upper level management API/CLI. Our most effective engineers are fluent in all these layers, and able to anticipate the consequences of design and engineering choices elsewhere in a complex distributed system.

As an engineering manager at Canonical you must have a solid technical background, but your responsibility is to run an effective team and develop the colleagues you manage. You are expected to help them grow as engineers, do important work, do it outstandingly well, find professional and personal satisfaction, and work well with colleagues and the community. Technical leadership experience and a background in software engineering are necessary prerequisites for this role. You will be expected to lead, challenge, and develop engineers, positively influence the culture, facilitate technical delivery, and work with your team on strategy and execution.

The successful candidate will have experience leading successful, collaborative engineering teams, and demonstrate the ability to solve challenging distributed systems problems and deep knowledge of Linux.

Location: This is a remote position available in EMEA and the Americas.

What you will focus on

Lead a team of remote engineers

Develop talent through coaching, mentoring, feedback and hands-on career development

Set and manage expectations with other engineering teams, senior management, and external stakeholders

Advocate and advance modern software development practices

Participate in the engineering process through code and architectural review

Engage with teams at Canonical, the open source community and partners

Work from home with global travel for 4 to 6 weeks per year for internal and external events

What we are looking for in you

You understand modern Linux cloud computing technologies, including networking, storage, containers and K8s

You love developing and growing people and have a strong track record of doing it

You are focused on success and the delivery of timely, high quality software

You have a Bachelor’s or equivalent in Computer Science, STEM or similar degree

You have strong written and verbal technical communication skills

You have experience programming in C and/or Go.

What we offer you

We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We revisit compensation annually (and more often for graduates and associates) to ensure we recognise outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus. We provide all team members with additional benefits, which reflect our values and ideals. We balance our programs to meet local needs and ensure fairness globally.

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

About Canonical

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. As the company that publishes Ubuntu, one of the most important open-source projects and the platform for AI, IoT, and the cloud, we are changing the world of software. We recruit on a global basis and set a very high standard for people joining the company. We expect excellence; in order to succeed, we need to be the best at what we do. Most colleagues at Canonical have worked from home since our inception in 2004.​ Working here is a step into the future and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game.

Canonical is an equal opportunity employer

We are proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and background create a better work environment and better products. Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.

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