Engineering Manager, MAAS

Position Summary

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 more than 80 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. Canonical is seeking passionate technical leaders who are eager to drive innovation in one of Canonical's flagship data centre products. You will play a key role in reshaping the future of data centre technology through open source management platforms.

Role Overview

We are hiring an Engineering Manager as we expand the MAAS team. Our mission with MAAS ("Metal as a Service") is to provide the best solution for building and running private bare‑metal infrastructure, putting a cloud‑style on‑demand API in front of physical server provisioning, network configuration, and storage. We are looking for engineering managers with experience in high‑quality software development and high‑performance team leadership who also have deep familiarity with Linux on physical servers, Linux storage and data centre networking capabilities.

The Canonical MAAS team is responsible for delivering our Metal As A Service (MAAS) hyperscale provisioning technology. Ubuntu strives to be the most scalable, cloud‑ready server distribution and MAAS is our platform to get Ubuntu on bare metal servers. MAAS is a rapidly evolving software stack written in Python and Go. Its components span the entire software stack: from low‑level hardware detection and provisioning, to the upper level management web interface, API, and CLI. Our most effective engineers are fluent in all these layers, and able to anticipate the consequences of design and engineering choices elsewhere in a complex distributed system.

Key Responsibilities

• Leading a distributed team of engineers in your time zone (we organise engineering teams by Americas, EMEA etc)
• Talent development through coaching, mentoring, feedback and career planning
• Setting and managing expectations with other engineering teams, senior management, and external stakeholders
• Being an advocate of, and advancing, modern software development practices
• Participating in the engineering process through code and architectural review
• Engaging with broader teams at Canonical, the open source community and partners
• Travelling to internal and external global events for 4 to 6 weeks per year

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) and a background in Computer Science
• Exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
• Proven experience delivering software using Python, Golang, or similar languages
• Experience with Linux system administration (Debian or Ubuntu preferred)
• Familiarity with modern Linux cloud computing technologies, including networking, storage, containers and Kubernetes
• Technical aptitude for understanding complex distributed systems
• Professional written and spoken English with excellent presentation skills
• Experience with agile software development methodologies
• Ability to mentor, develop, and support team members
• Result‑oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments
• Ability to travel internationally twice a year for company events up to two weeks long

Nice‑to‑have Skills

• Typescript using modern web frameworks such as React, Angular, Svelte or Vue
• Data centre infrastructure management and design

What We Offer

• Distributed work environment with twice‑yearly team sprints in person — we've been working remotely since 2004!
• 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

Location

This is a work‑from‑anywhere position available in EMEA or the Americas.

Equal Employment Opportunity

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.

Seniority Level

Mid‑Senior level

Employment Type

Full‑time

Job Function

Engineering and Information Technology, Software Development