Information Systems - Source Technical Architect

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 enterprise initiatives across public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation and IoT. The company is founder-led, profitable and growing, with 1200 colleagues in more than 80 countries and few office-based roles. Teams meet two to four times yearly in person, in various locations around the world, to align on strategy and execution.

This is a home-based position with twice-annual travel to company events totaling around 4 weeks per year.

Information Systems Architect to define best practices in infrastructure as code at a global scale. Join us to advance the state of the art and shape the infrastructure behind tens of millions devices running Ubuntu. The Information Systems (IS) team is responsible for all IT operations at Canonical, including the infrastructure for building, packaging and distributing Ubuntu globally. You will own the design of hardware and software implementation from PCI lanes to CDN and everything in between, aiming to be a reference operation using modern operating principles.

Your choices will impact the Ubuntu user experience for millions of users and influence how Canonical's engineers engage with compute and network resources in a Dev Ops setting.

You will be in a unique position to improve Canonical products and the open-source technologies they’re based on by leading System Reliability Engineers (SRE) and Data Center Engineers (DCE), embracing best practices and making informed technology choices across cloud infrastructure and services. You will coach the IS team on automation, reliability, operational/technical scalability, network infrastructure and security.

• Define, obtain buy-in for, and implement the holistic vision of a world-class internal cloud
• Set up, maintain and update the technical design roadmap and guidelines for the SREs within IS to improve reliability, resilience, operational scalability and technical scalability
• Collaborate with cloud-ops software development teams to provide input for roadmap, requirements and prioritization to build a standardized and automated operation
• Provide IS management input and advice on technology, reliability, resilience and business cases
• Lead technical choices to implement solutions as self-service products with scalable operations
• Collaborate with product security and operations security to set best practices and mitigate new threats promptly
• Automate operations for reuse across large organizations, considering distributed systems complexity
• Collaborate with development teams to design service architecture, documentation, playbooks, policies and operational procedures
• Analyze incidents to identify root causes and implement structural improvements to reduce recurrence

• Exceptional academic track record from high school and university
• Undergraduate degree in a technical subject or a compelling alternative path
• Confidence to speak up, exchange feedback, and share ideas respectfully
• Track record of going above and beyond to achieve outstanding results
• Extensive knowledge of cloud computing concepts, technologies and operations
• Practical knowledge of Linux networking, routing, firewalls, internet transit and large-scale networking
• Experience dealing with significant production outages, incident response and postmortems
• A passion for writing, sharing, and maintaining enterprise open-source software solutions
• Clear communication in English via email, chat, video or voice calls and in person
• Familiarity with and passion for open-source, especially Ubuntu or Debian

• Modern software engineering background (peer review, unit testing, SCM, CI/CD, Agile)
• Hands-on experience administering enterprise Linux servers at scale

• Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person
• Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year
• Annual compensation review and a performance-driven bonus or commission where applicable
• Comprehensive benefits aligned with company values
• Annual holiday leave…