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Engineering Manager - Distributed Systems, Python / Go
Remote, Home Based - Americas; Home based - EMEA·Added 2 days ago
Overview
Job details
Fully remote
Only from certain places, per the ad: “This is a globally remote role, typically leading a team concentrated within a major time zone such as EMEA or the Americas.”
Requirements
Have the right to work in Spain
Canonical doesn't mention sponsorship, but this role may fit the Digital nomad visa.
Work in English
English is required, per the ad.
University degree
“An exceptional academic track record from both high school and university” — per the ad.
Pay & benefits
What you'll get
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 recognize outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus.
We provide all team members with additional benefits that reflect our values and ideals. We balance our programmes 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 and wellness support
- Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues
- Priority Pass and travel upgrades for long-haul company events
Requirements
What we're looking for
- An exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
- Experience in leading, coaching, and mentoring software engineers
- Professional software engineering experience with Python or Go
- Expertise in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, quality engineering, or a closely related domain
- Strong knowledge of modern software testing processes, strategies, and automation
- Experience with Linux (Debian or Ubuntu preferred)
- Strong technical judgement and the ability to engage meaningfully in code reviews, architecture discussions, and software design
- Experience working in an agile development environment with the ability to organize a team to deliver high-quality results
- Professional written and spoken English with excellent communication and presentation skills
- Great interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, and accountability, demonstrating passion, thoughtfulness, and self-motivation
- Ability to travel twice a year, for company events up to two weeks each
Nice to have
Experience with any of the following:
- Cloud technologies such as Kubernetes, OpenStack, Juju, Terraform, AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure
- Designing testing strategies for distributed or cloud-native systems
- Building or operating large-scale CI/CD and test infrastructure
- Applying AI or machine learning to test analysis, failure classification, or engineering workflows
- Deploying, operating, or debugging distributed systems
- Leading globally distributed teams
The role
We are hiring an Engineering Manager for Distributed Systems Testing to lead a team responsible for the quality engineering platform that enables deployment and validation of distributed systems across Canonical's cloud portfolio.
We see quality engineering as a first-class engineering practice. Our Distributed Systems Testing team ensures the performance, correctness, resilience and interoperability of Canonical cloud solutions built with technologies such as Juju, Terraform, OpenStack and Kubernetes. These systems are deployed and tested across diverse environments, from bare-metal to the public cloud.
As Engineering Manager, you will combine strong software engineering judgement with people leadership. You will develop engineering talent, establish effective engineering practices, shape technical direction with senior engineers, and ensure the team delivers high-quality testing infrastructure and automation that enables engineering teams across Canonical to ship software with confidence.
We believe engineering managers should be outstanding engineers themselves. You should be comfortable reviewing patches, evaluating software design, debugging a distributed system, or discussing test architecture. You will contribute technically where appropriate to set a high standard, while recognizing that your greatest impact comes from shaping the direction, focus, effectiveness, and growth of the whole team.
You will work closely with senior engineers and engineering leaders across Canonical to define priorities, improve testing capabilities, and advance how we validate increasingly complex cloud-native and distributed systems.
What you'll do
- Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of software and quality engineers, ranging from graduate to senior level
- Set clear expectations, strengthen engineering practices, and ensure timely delivery against agreed goals
- Partner with senior engineers to shape technical strategy, architecture, roadmap, and engineering standards
- Guide the development of automated testing infrastructure for the reliability, interoperability, and resilience of distributed systems
- Improve CI pipelines, testing tools, and reporting used to validate Canonical's products and solutions across bare-metal, private and public cloud environments
- Enable engineering teams across Canonical to adopt effective distributed-systems testing practices and tooling
- Contribute technical leadership through design and code reviews, debugging, and hands-on engineering where appropriate
- Represent the team with stakeholders and collaborate across Canonical on quality engineering, infrastructure, and developer experience
How you'll work
Location: This is a globally remote role, typically leading a team concentrated within a major time zone such as EMEA or the Americas.
Hiring process
Application
Written interview
In your own time
A written submission tailored to the role presenting your academic and professional accomplishments; you choose format and length, and two domain experts grade it.
Psychometric assessment (GIA)
Online test · 30–45 min
A cognitive-ability test measuring aptitude, problem solving and speed of learning, required for all applicants.
Technical assessment
Not every role
A domain-specific assessment for some roles, graded by domain experts and discussed in later interviews.
Early stage interviews
With future colleagues and stakeholders · 3 sessions
Three interviews with future colleagues and stakeholders focused on technical and domain skills.
Talent interview
With Talent Science team
Interview with the Talent Science team including a 10-minute Personality Profile Analysis; compensation is first discussed here.
Late stage interviews
With potential manager, Hiring Lead and senior stakeholders
Meet your potential manager, the Hiring Lead and senior stakeholders; management and leadership candidates also meet the CEO.
Offer and onboarding · With a Hiring Lead
- After application review you get a personal dashboard showing your assessment and interview plan.
- The written interview is submitted anonymously to reduce bias early on.
- You may apply to a single job once, or to four different jobs, in any 180-day period.
About Canonical
Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, the world's most widely used open-source operating system for cloud, IoT, and enterprise environments. Founded in 2004, the company is a global leader in open-source software, providing secure, supported Ubuntu solutions to enterprises, developers, and device manufacturers. With a distributed workforce spanning over 80 countries, Canonical drives innovation in areas like AI, edge computing, and cloud-native technologies, making it a key player in the open-source ecosystem.
Canonical has a strong presence in Spain, with a significant number of open roles across engineering, product, marketing, and sales. The company is known for its fully remote-first culture, allowing employees to work from anywhere, including Spain. For international professionals, Canonical offers a unique opportunity to contribute to world-class open-source projects, collaborate with a global team, and enjoy flexible work arrangements. The company values autonomy, excellence, and a passion for open-source, making it an attractive employer for those seeking a dynamic, remote-friendly environment.
- Industry
- Cloud/Ubuntu
- Founded
- 2004
- Employees
- 1,000–5,000
- Headquarters
- London, UK
- Website
- canonical.com
Good to know if you are moving
- Canonical is a remote-first company, allowing employees to work from anywhere, including Spain, with no requirement to relocate to a central office.
- The company offers a diverse, international work environment with colleagues from over 80 countries, providing a global perspective.
- Canonical is a major contributor to open-source projects, offering opportunities to work on widely-used technologies like Ubuntu, Kubernetes, and OpenStack.
- Employees often receive a competitive salary and benefits, including home office setup allowances and professional development opportunities.
- The company values autonomy and self-motivation, making it ideal for professionals who thrive in a flexible, results-driven culture.
In their own words
About the company & team
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. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, as well as industry leaders across many sectors.
Canonical is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1,200+ 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.
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 a leading platform for AI, IoT, and the cloud, we are changing the world of software.
We recruit globally and set a very high standard for people joining the company. We expect excellence; to succeed, we need to be the best at what we do. Most colleagues at Canonical have worked from home since our 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.
Additional information
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.
Requisition ID: 1361
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