Graduate Software Engineer, Source and Linux, Ubuntu

Position: Graduate Software Engineer, Open Source and Linux, Canonical Ubuntu
Overview
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. 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.

We are hiring  2025 and 2026 Graduate Software Engineers  into engineering teams around the world. As a global platform company we offer a wide range of software engineering challenges, in both open source products and commercial business systems. We have teams that work in a variety of languages, typically Python, Golang, Rust, C/C++, JavaScript and of course... Bash. We work from the very lowest levels of the Linux system – BIOS and boot loaders, firmware, kernel and drivers, all the way up to desktop applications and containers.

We work on tiny devices like the Raspberry Pi and new RISC-V boards, all the way up to supercomputers, clouds and Kubernetes clusters. We work on compilers and tool chains, and we work on security, cryptography, performance and documentation. Some of our teams focus on packaging thousands of pieces of software, others focus on deep contributions to a single body of code.

If you are excited about the potential that open source has for humanity and the enterprise, you have outstanding results in your academic career, and you are excited to contribute to the open source stack, this is the best way to apply to Canonical. We will work with you to identify teams and projects that would be interesting and a good fit for your skills and motivations.

The process is highly competitive, it will require effort and excellence to succeed if you apply here.

Location
This is a globally remote role.

Responsibilities

Shaping the roadmap for your product at global sprints every six months

Focusing on design and user experience, even for developer tooling and command line apps

Writing high quality, resilient and performant code, potentially serving millions of demanding daily users

Working towards mastery of key programming languages and Linux system knowledge

Engaging with users and the open source community through code reviews and issue trackers

Responding to customer issues as a priority, develop an understanding of enterprise requirements

Developing skills and awareness of security in software design and implementation

What we are looking for in you

Exceptional academic track record from both high school and university

Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Business Informatics, Mathematics or another STEM discipline with programming courses

Confidence to get started and deliver high quality code in one of Python, Rust, C/C++, Golang, JavaScript or Java

Experience with Ubuntu or another Linux distribution

Track record of going above-and-beyond expectations to achieve outstanding results

Result-oriented and organized, with the drive to meet commitments

Personal projects in technology and software engineering beyond the curriculum

Professional written and spoken English

Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, and accountability

Personal responsibility and accountability

Thoughtfulness, self-awareness and the ability to reflect and develop

Ability to travel internationally twice a year for company events up to two weeks long

Nice-to-have skills

Upstream open source contributions

Packaging and Linux distribution contributions - Debian, Fedora, Arch, Nix or another

Leadership and organization skills

Presentation and writing skills

Business and commercial interests

What we offer colleagues
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 recognize outstanding…