Ubuntu Engineering Lead

Overview

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. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors. The company is founder led, profitable and growing.

We are hiring engineering leaders to work across the breadth of our Ubuntu Engineering organisation – leaders who care deeply for quality, performance and resilience in software, and have a proven track record for building, nurturing and developing high performing engineering teams.

The four key teams that ship Ubuntu are the

• Foundations
  : maintaining foundational software: architectures, package managers, compilers, tool chains, bootloaders, file systems and core utilities
• Server
  : leading the design, evolution and future of our Ubuntu Server distribution
• Desktop
  : driving Ubuntu Desktop, our future immutable desktop:
  Ubuntu Core Desktop, WSL, gaming technology, and a suite of modern applications for the desktop crafted with Flutter
• Debcrafters
  : a new team responsible for the forward movement, maintenance and overall health of the Ubuntu archive: one of the most abundant repositories of open source software available today

We have remote roles open in every time zone.

You’ll be accountable for your technical roadmap and responsible for your team: helping them grow as engineers, do important and satisfying work, and have a great time while doing it. Technical leadership experience and a background in software engineering are necessary prerequisites for this role. You will be expected to lead, challenge, and develop strong engineers, positively influence the culture, facilitate technical delivery, and work with your team on strategy and execution.

• Leading their teams in elevating the Linux developer and user experience
• Designing, building and shipping high quality, performant software in Rust, Go and Python
• Demonstrating sound engineering principles through architecture, development and code reviews
• Taking responsibility for planning, estimation and execution
• Working with product management to define the vision and strategy for Ubuntu
• Setting expectations with other engineering teams, senior management, and external stakeholders
• Offering coaching, mentoring, technical feedback and hands‑on career development
• Contributing to upstream and neighboring open source projects
• Optimizing the distribution for performance, reliability, and security
• Debugging complex system-level issues and delivering robust solutions
• Authoring and improving technical and community documentation

• An exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science or STEM, or a compelling narrative about your alternative path
• Ability to drive and deliver technical work streams going above and beyond expectations
• Lead and coach others to deliver exceptional engineering work
• A demonstrated passion for open source software
• Significant experience with Rust, Go, Python, Flutter or C/C++
• Professional written and spoken English
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Result‑oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments
• Ability to travel twice a year, for company events up to two weeks each

• Experience contributing to or leading open source projects
• Experience with Linux distributions/distribution engineering
• Experience with software packaging and distribution mechanisms
• Performance or Security Engineering experience

• 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

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. As the…