Performance Engineer - Source

Performance Engineer - Open Source role at Canonical

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.

We have created a new career path for Performance Engineers who bring exceptional clarity to software performance, correctness and efficiency. The role involves driving performance and correctness engineering across the entire Ubuntu stack, collaborating with teams and the wider open‑source community, and building shared tools, dashboards and analytics.

• 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

• Low‑level CPU insights and assembly language – 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
• Test harnesses and capabilities in C, C++, Rust, Python, Golang, NodeJS, Java Script

• Exceptional academic track record from 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
• Track record of exceeding expectations to achieve outstanding results
• Leadership and commitment to skills development and mentorship
• Passion for technology evidenced by personal projects and initiatives
• Professional written and spoken English with excellent presentation skills
• Experience with Linux (Debian or Ubuntu preferred)
• Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility and accountability
• Appreciative of diversity, polite and effective in a multi‑cultural, multi‑national organisation
• Thoughtfulness and self‑motivation
• Result‑oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments
• Ability to travel internationally twice a year, for company events up to two weeks long

• 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 for long‑haul company events

We have teams in every time zone and can accommodate applications from almost any country.

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 of software. We recruit on a global basis and set a very high standard for people joining the company.

Most colleagues at Canonical work from home.

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.