Performance Engineer - Source

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.

We have created a new career path at Canonical for Performance Engineers who bring exceptional clarity to software performance, correctness and efficiency. As an open source platform, we have teams that work at every level of the software stack - from the kernel up through server and desktop applications, all the way to the web.

We are adding roles with this focus in every engineering team in the company, to act as drivers of performance engineering skills, tools, culture and insights to our entire product range. We have also created a central performance engineering team, where we will drive shared tools, dashboarding capabilities, measurement frameworks, analytical capabilities and skills.

• Drive software performance and correctness in a specific project
• Collaborate with colleagues and community around the globe
• Work on shared tools and infrastructure for performance measurement, analysis and reporting
• Teach, train and develop skills in your team for performance culture and design
• Strengthen test capabilities, harnesses and pipelines
• Analyze systems and code to understand performance and scalability
• Solve problems directly or through influence, leadership and skills development
• Review code and technical designs

• Exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Mathematics or Physics
• Demonstrable personal initiatives to measure and improve performance, efficiency and correctness in code
• Confidence to respectfully speak up, exchange feedback, and share ideas without hesitation
• Track record of going above-and-beyond expectations to achieve outstanding results
• Leadership and commitment to skills development and mentorship
• Passion for technology evidenced by personal projects and initiatives
• The work ethic and confidence to shine alongside motivated colleagues
• Professional written and spoken English with excellent presentation skills
• Experience with Linux (Debian or Ubuntu preferred)
• Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, and accountability

• Low-level CPU insights and assembly language - understanding cache, registers, vectorization, memory
• Kernel performance insights - scheduling, context switching, hardware acceleration
• Distributed systems performance insights - tracing, debugging
• Compiler level performance insights - profile guided optimization, inlining, assembler
• Runtime performance insights - Golang, Python, JVM, NodeJS
• Database performance evaluation - plans, indexing, data modelling, tracing, monitoring
• Web browser performance insights - JS, web frameworks, tracing, CSS
• Performance measurement tooling - profiling, eBPF, D-Trace, flame graphs
• Benchmarks and performance measurement tools - Phoronix Test Suite, others

• 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

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.