Containerization & Virtualisation Engineer

Job Description

Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets. Our platform, Ubuntu, is widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation and IoT. The company is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1000+ colleagues in 70+ 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.

This is a general selection process for software engineers focused on virtualization and container technology – from the kernel through userspace. Apply if you are an exceptional Go, Rust or C/C++ engineer and want to work on next‑generation open‑source VMM or container technology, or related open‑source networking and storage.

Container, virtualization and cloud infrastructure are essential to modern software deployments. We invest in open‑source application isolation, workload orchestration, system or OCI containers, micro‑service architecture and cloud infrastructure.

Examples of projects underway at Canonical:

• RustVMM – a new hypervisor for Linux focused on performance, security and operability.
• Rockcraft – designing an elevated Docker image experience for the open‑source community.
• LXD – modern system container and virtual machine manager spanning the entire stack from name spaces to REST APIs.
• Micro
  
  K8s and Charmed Kubernetes – building and operating Kubernetes and its tooling.
• Charmed Open Stack, OVN/OVS and Ceph – delivering cloud platform technologies to large‑scale environments.

Our teams hire system‑level C/C++, Golang, Rust and Python developers to work on security‑critical, performance‑critical and mission‑critical code. We aim to have a meaningful impact on modern cloud computing technologies.

Location:

remote container and virtualization engineering roles in every time zone.

• Design and specify new features, building consensus on approach
• Engage with upstream communities in your area of expertise
• Conduct security analysis and reviews to ensure defence in depth
• Create and monitor performance benchmarks to optimise your product
• Collaborate proactively with a distributed team
• Write high‑quality code to create new features
• Debug issues and produce high‑quality code to fix them
• Review code produced by other engineers
• Discuss ideas and collaborate on finding good solutions

• An exceptional academic track record from high school and university
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science or STEM, or a compelling narrative about an alternative path
• Drive and a track record of going above and beyond expectations
• Experience with open‑source virtualization or container tech
• Experience working in the kernel or very low‑level system
• Professional written and spoken English
• Experience with Linux (Debian or Ubuntu preferred)
• Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility and accountability
• Passion, thoughtfulness and self‑motivation
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Result‑oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments
• Ability to travel twice a year for company events up to two weeks each

• Performance engineering and security experience

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 that 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…