Engineering Director, Sustaining Engineering

This is an Engineering Director position, responsible for the worldwide Sustaining Engineering team of software engineers at Canonical. This position reports to the VP Support at Canonical.

The Sustaining Engineering group is a worldwide team of generalist open source software engineers, responsible for driving software issues reported by Canonical customers to successful resolution. We tackle problems in any package in Ubuntu, and for our largest customers, will engage on deep issues in upstream projects not yet packaged in the distribution. We are Canonical's open source special forces, or SWAT team, or firefighting ladder, as you prefer. We work on the hardest-to-debug production problems in the kernel, and we work in every programming language you can find in open source. Depending on your perspective this is either an absolute engineering nightmare or the world's best way to spend a fully paid day :)

We take care over career and skills development for our colleagues, and we are in a unique position to offer engineers an incredibly wide range of topics into which they can delve deeply to become our first and best expert. As our customer base expands, and as we have become more confident to make service commitments to a wider and wider range of open source, we have expanded the range of technologies in which we can justify investing time and attention. We are now in a push to become the world's leading provider of open source from the public cloud to the edge, from desktops to servers and IoT.

As an Engineering Director role, this position will manage the managers of multiple teams. We try to keep each frontline team in a single timezone, but this position of necessity has global responsibility, so the successful candidate will need to be able to set expectations and manage remotely. In this role, you will:

• Define the strategy of the Sustaining Engineering group, as a part of the overall direction set for the wider organization

• Act as an escalation point for key customers and internal escalations, occasionally over weekends

• Be an advocate for your group and shape the overall Support strategy along with other senior leaders

• Hire, organize, grow, nurture and lead a diverse set of technical contributors to provide excellent customer support for the platform at the heart of cloud and enterprise computing

• Be involved with contracts, customers and executives across the table in renewal and sales discussions

• Influence others and be a committed, vocal leader across the organization

• Define and ensure adherence to company and team processes

• Use analytics to shape and drive the team and business

• Be comfortable and confident leading and working across geographically dispersed teams

• Work from home with global travel up to 20% for company and industry events and customer meetings

This role will suit a dynamic and driven leader with a passion for open-source and a penchant for building world class teams, who prefers to tackle hard problems under pressure without needing to manage a long-term roadmap.

Location: This is a home-based role that can be filled in any timezone.

What we are looking for in you

• You are an articulate communicator and want to lead a global business

• You love technology and working with brilliant people

• You have a solid understanding of three or more of: Ubuntu - kernel or userspace, Kubernetes, OpenStack, Ceph, QEMU/KVM, LXC/LXD, Postgresql, Mongo, deb or snap packaging

• You value getting things done the right way

• You follow industry trends and new technologies

• Experience in leading, coaching and mentoring software developers

• Experience with Open Source and Open Source Business Models

• Outstanding Linux based software engineering track record

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

• You will bring an exceptional academic track record

What we offer you

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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