Software Engineer - packaging - optimize Ubuntu Server for public clouds

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 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.

The Canonical Public Cloud team is looking for enthusiastic engineers to be Ubuntu distribution engineers. Engineers working on the Ubuntu distribution will work closely with the Ubuntu Engineering organization to ensure technologies such as cloud specific agents, webservers, databases, and virtualization and containerization stacks are optimized for public clouds. CPC works closely with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Oracle and other world-class cloud partners to optimize Ubuntu for their infrastructure. Our goal is to celebrate and enable their particular points of differentiation on their clouds, while also ensuring a common operating experience for their users. Working on the CPC team as a distro engineer means working closely with partners and with Ubuntu to make the best version of Ubuntu for the cloud.

Ubuntu Server is a platform that enables amazing technology the whole world over, and is the #1 operating system in the public clouds. Applicants to this role will have the opportunity to help with everything that goes into evolving Ubuntu. The Public Cloud team builds Ubuntu Server for cloud environments, maintaining extensive continuous deployment operations to deliver images to end users. You will get to work with our experienced team and have the benefits of learning and growing alongside the best engineers in the business.

This role entails

• Collaborating proactively within a distributed team

• Fostering a software ecosystem with seamless user experience for all Ubuntu users

• Evaluating contributions of other engineers to maintain high-quality software standards

• Collaborating with other teams in the Ubuntu and Debian communities, with upstream projects, and commercially supported customers

• Debugging issues on open source code and team maintained code

• Working with the Ubuntu Engineering Server team to maintain and package software such as:

  • Cloud agents (google guest agent, ec2-hibinit-agent, walinuxagent, etc)

  • Traditional server workloads (web servers, databases, network services, etc)

• Work from home with global travel 2 to 4 weeks for internal and external events

What we are looking for in you

• You love technology and working with brilliant people

• You are curious, flexible, articulate, and accountable

• You value soft skills and are passionate, enterprising, thoughtful, and self-motivated

• You value building partnerships with a diverse set of internal and external groups

• Interest or experience in public cloud operations or architecture

• Interest or experience in open source maintenance or contribution

• Understands basic reproducibility and testing steps. Comfortable setting up test systems in containers or virtual machines. Able to describe issues and steps clearly

• Strong fundamentals in Python

• Interest in learning Linux distribution packaging

• Fundamental understanding of package management and dependency resolution

• Interest in containerization and virtualization such as Docker or OCI service containers, LXD system containers, and local virtualization like Virtualbox or QEMU, or Public Clouds

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 recognise outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus. We provide all team members with additional benefits, which reflect our values and ideals. We balance our programs to meet local needs and ensure fairness globally.

• 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

About Canonical

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 on a daily basis. We recruit on a global basis and set a very high standard for people joining the company. We expect excellence - in order to succeed, we need to be the best at what we do. Canonical has been a remote-first company since its inception in 2004.​ Working here is a step into the future, and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game.

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.

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