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 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.
The Canonical Kernel Team is seeking exceptionally talented technology experts and industry veterans with a proven track record in operating systems kernel development or low level system engineering to take the lead in the architecture, implementation, and ongoing delivery of the following (but not limited to) aspects of the Ubuntu Linux kernel:
While not a formal managerial role, the successful candidate will possess strong people skills and natural ability to lead engineers within the team, as well as working with other external teams to coordinate adoption and delivery.
We are looking for individuals with not only an incredibly deep technical background in operating system kernels and distributions, but also a strong flair for leadership and taking initiative to drive ideas and the associated delivery teams to completion.
While we hesitate to put a specific number of years of experience as a requirement for an applicant as that does not take into account relative ability or circumstances, for a comparative guideline we would be seeking candidates with the demonstrated technical equivalent of 15+ years of industry experience.
Location: We have home-based lead kernel engineer roles in every timezone, although the individual aspects as listed above may be linked to a specific geographic region.