Cloud Field Engineering Manager

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 daily. We recruit on a global basis and set a very high standard for people joining the company, expecting excellence to be the best at what we do. Canonical has been a remote-first company since its inception in 2004, offering a unique window into 21st-century digital business where you will be challenged to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game. Canonical is an equal opportunity employer, proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination, valuing diversity of experience, perspectives, and background.

The Role of a Cloud Field Engineering Manager at Canonical

This is an opportunity to run a field engineering team, helping customers understand and implement Canonical's open source solutions in public clouds and their data centers. We work across the entire spectrum of cloud offerings, from Ubuntu itself to virtualisation and private cloud, Kubernetes, and the implementation of sophisticated open source solutions such as MLOps platforms, data platforms, and more. We are rapidly expanding the range of open source solutions we offer and deliver to customers, moving into new industries like telco, finance, health care, and media, where we design and develop new open source solutions to meet their needs.

We believe that Engineering Managers should be outstanding engineers themselves, comfortable troubleshooting technical issues and engaging in technical presales conversations with customers. While contributing to project delivery, their ability to shape the team’s direction, focus, and delivery is paramount. We grow management skills and train engineers interested in soft skills to become managers. We believe open source is transforming the tech sector, and our goal is to make it easier, more reliable, and more secure. Our engineers are carefully selected globally for brilliance and motivation to take open source to the next level, and our engineering managers help teams achieve more than they realised possible.

The Field Engineering team comprises cloud solutions architects working directly with customers, designing private and public cloud solutions. The portfolio includes on-premise solutions like Openstack, MicroCloud, and Ceph, and deployable solutions in public clouds such as Kubernetes, Kubeflow, Spark, and PostgreSQL. The team works hands-on, deploying, testing, and handing over solutions to support or managed services. Managers and team members also participate in presales conversations, providing technical advice during the sales process.

A Cloud Field Engineering Manager is responsible for line management and career guidance. Critical to success are the ability to develop engineering talent, represent your team technically, and drive collaboration with other teams and customers. You are also expected to actively participate in technical presales to help the department achieve quarterly goals. This role is home-based, managing a team in your time zone.

What Your Day Will Look Like

• Lead and develop a team of Field engineers, ranging from graduate to senior, in Presales and Professional Services.
• Solve customer problems by promoting our technologies and being a trusted advisor.
• Work remotely in a single major time zone.
• Coach, mentor, and offer career development feedback.
• Identify and measure team health indicators.
• Implement disciplined engineering processes.
• Represent your team and product to stakeholders, partners, and customers.
• Develop and evangelise great engineering and organisational practices.
• Plan and manage progress on agreed goals and projects.
• Be an active part of the leadership team, collaborating with other leaders.

What We Are Looking For In You

• Knowledge of cloud computing concepts & technologies, such as Kubernetes, Openstack, AWS, GCP, Azure, Ceph, etc.
• Practical knowledge of Linux and networking.
• Experience in technical presales.
• A dynamic person who loves to jump into new projects and interact with people.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.
• Passion and a track record of developing and growing people.
• Experience in leading, coaching, and mentoring engineers.
• Organised and able to ensure your team delivers timely, high quality results.
• An exceptional academic track record from high school and, preferably, university as well.
• Willingness to travel up to 25% of the time for internal company events, external tech events, and customer meetings.

Additional Skills That You Might Also Bring

• Second language - Spanish or French preferred.
• Python knowledge.
• Experience collaborating with external partners.
• Experience collaborating with several internal teams and providing stakeholder feedback for engineering roadmaps.

What We Offer You

We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. Compensation is revisited annually (and more often for graduates and associates) to recognise outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus. We provide all team members with additional benefits, balancing 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 from your team and others.
• Priority Pass for travel and travel upgrades for long haul company events.

Key skills/competency

• Cloud Architecture
• Team Leadership
• Technical Presales
• Open Source Solutions
• Kubernetes
• OpenStack
• AWS, GCP, Azure
• Linux & Networking
• Talent Development
• Customer Engagement