Observability Engineering Manager

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About the Role

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 Io
T. 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.

We are hiring an Observability Engineering Manager who will lead the development of the distributed tracing or service mesh products as part of our Observability group. Engineering managers at Canonical are always coders who are able to review and lead both architecture and code. They are also astute judges of character and comfortable setting expectations and holding colleagues accountable to them.

We are building an observability stack that is easy to deploy and operate on Kubernetes. This is part of a broader initiative to deliver the world’s best suite of open source tools, where we provide deep integration and automation for best‑of‑breed open source offerings that cover metrics, logging, telemetry, alerting, tracing and profiling. Our goal is to make observability tools integral and pervasive across software practices.

Our implementation of Kubernetes operators is opinionated, resilient and scalable, providing deep insights out of the box. The user experience is polished and seamless for the end‑users, and its administrators will enjoy smooth, lightweight Day 1 and Day 2 operations. We are excited to be improving the state of the art for open‑source observability.

Location

This role can be home based in the EMEA or Americas regions.

Responsibilities

• Manage a distributed team of engineers and its observability portfolio
• Organise and lead the team’s processes to help it achieve its objectives
• Conduct one‑on‑one meetings with team members
• Identify and measure team health indicators
• Interact with a vibrant community
• Review code produced by other engineers
• Attend conferences to represent Canonical and its Observability Stack

Qualifications

• An exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
• A proven track record of professional experience delivering software
• Professional software development experience, preferably with a track record in open source
• Willingness to travel up to four times a year for internal events
• Professional written and spoken English
• Experience with Linux (Debian or Ubuntu preferred)
• Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility and accountability
• Passion, thoughtfulness and self‑motivation
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Result‑oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments

Nice‑to‑have skills

• Experience as an engineering manager with a track record of building high‑performance teams
• Professional Python development experience
• Working knowledge of Go
• Open source contribution experience
• Interest and experience with container technologies
• Proven understanding of the importance of observability and monitoring for keeping software running smoothly
• Experience designing and implementing observability solutions

Benefits

• 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
• Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform
• 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, Io
T, and the cloud, we are changing the world of software. We recruit on a global basis 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.

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 working environment and better products. Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.