Senior Software Engineer - packaging - optimize Ubuntu Server

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 cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation and IoT. Canonical employs 1200+ colleagues in 75+ countries with many remote roles. Teams meet in person a few times per year to align on strategy and execution.

Canonical's Ubuntu Engineering Server Team is looking for open source enthusiasts to help build the distro of the future. The Server Team maintains and packages a wide variety of software including web servers, databases, virtualization and containerization stacks. This is an exciting opportunity for a software engineer passionate about open source software. Join Canonical to help bring free software to a broad audience.

Ubuntu Server is a platform that enables technology worldwide and is a leading operating system in public clouds. Applicants to this role will contribute to evolving Ubuntu and will work with an experienced team to learn and grow among top engineers.

Responsibilities

• Collaborating proactively within a distributed team
• Fostering a software ecosystem with a seamless user experience for all Ubuntu users
• Evaluating contributions of other engineers to maintain high-quality software standards
• Shaping the future of Ubuntu through new ideas in your areas of interest and advising on related work
• Collaborating with other teams in the Ubuntu and Debian communities, with upstream projects, and with commercially supported customers
• Owning the maintenance of Ubuntu Server packages, including but not limited to:
• Traditional server workloads (web servers, databases, network services, etc.)
• Virtualisation and containers
• Package management and dependencies
• Language runtimes and toolchains
• 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
• Interest or experience in open source maintenance or contributions
• Able to reproduce complex workloads and write detailed test plans and reproducibility steps
• Comfort contributing and debugging multiple languages such as C/C++, Python, Rust, Go, Ruby, PHP
• Experience in packaging in one or more ecosystems (language-specific systems or distro package formats such as deb, rpm, NixOS)
• Experience using and creating containers and virtual machines
• A Bachelor’s or equivalent degree in Computer Science, STEM or similar, or 5+ years of professional experience

What we offer

• Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person
• Personal learning and development budget
• Annual compensation review
• Recognition rewards
• Annual holiday leave
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues
• Travel benefits for long-haul company events

About Canonical

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. We publish Ubuntu, a key open source project and platform for AI, IoT and the cloud. We recruit on a global basis and maintain a remote-first policy. We expect excellence and encourage continuous learning and growth.

Equal Opportunity

Canonical is an equal opportunity employer. We foster a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience and background strengthens our products and team, and all qualified applicants will receive fair consideration.