Ubuntu Engineering Lead
About the role
Canonical is hiring engineering leaders to work across the breadth of our Ubuntu Engineering organisation. These roles are for leaders who care deeply for quality, performance, and resilience in software, and have a proven track record for building, nurturing, and developing high-performing engineering teams. At Canonical, managers are expected to stay technical and close to the code, while Senior+ engineers lead and develop software projects, as well as the processes and people around them.
Our teams integrate the freshest open source software, provide robust upgrade paths, and engineer the future of Ubuntu. The four key teams that ship Ubuntu are:
- Foundations: maintaining foundational software: architectures, package managers, compilers, toolchains, bootloaders, filesystems, and core utilities
- Server: leading the design, evolution, and future of our Ubuntu Server distribution
- Desktop: driving Ubuntu Desktop, our future immutable desktop: Ubuntu Core Desktop, WSL, gaming technology, and a suite of modern applications for the desktop crafted with Flutter
- Debcrafters: a new team responsible for the forward movement, maintenance, and overall health of the Ubuntu archive: one of the most abundant repositories of open source software available today
You will be accountable for your technical roadmap and responsible for your team, helping them grow as engineers, do important and satisfying work, and have a great time while doing it. Technical leadership experience and a background in software engineering are necessary prerequisites. You will lead, challenge, and develop strong engineers, positively influence the culture, facilitate technical delivery, and work with your team on strategy and execution.
At Canonical, you will have the opportunity to engage with and contribute to the broader open source community. Based on the first round of interviews, we identify specific teams where you might be an excellent fit and conduct second-round interviews with those teams.
Responsibilities
- Lead teams in elevating the Linux developer and user experience
- Design, build, and ship high-quality, performant software in Rust, Go, and Python
- Demonstrate sound engineering principles through architecture, development, and code reviews
- Take responsibility for planning, estimation, and execution
- Work with product management to define the vision and strategy for Ubuntu
- Set expectations with other engineering teams, senior management, and external stakeholders
- Offer coaching, mentoring, technical feedback, and hands-on career development
- Contribute to upstream and neighboring open source projects
- Optimize the distribution for performance, reliability, and security
- Debug complex system-level issues and deliver robust solutions
- Author and improve technical and community documentation
Requirements
- 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
Nice-to-have Skills
- 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
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
- Performance-driven annual bonus
- 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 on a daily basis. 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.
Canonical has been a remote-first company since its 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.