Containerization & Virtualisation Engineer

About Canonical

Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems, powering enterprise initiatives in public cloud, data science, AI, engineering, and IoT. We are a global, remote-first company with over 1000 colleagues in 70+ countries, fostering a collaborative environment with in-person team sprints twice a year. Canonical is founder-led, profitable, and growing, committed to open source technologies.

About the Role

This is a general selection process for software engineers focused on virtualisation and container technology, from kernel to userspace. We are seeking exceptional Go, Rust, or C/C++ software engineers to work on next-generation open source VMM or container technology, and related open source networking and storage. You will contribute to essential modern software deployment technologies, investing in open source related to application isolation, workload orchestration, system or OCI containers, micro service architecture, or cloud infrastructure.

Example Projects:

• RustVMM: Building a new hypervisor for Linux with an emphasis on performance, security, and operability, utilizing Rust and kernel networking/storage expertise.
• Rockcraft: Elevating the Docker image experience for the open source community by designing and implementing an improved image creation and maintenance process.
• LXD: Developing a modern system container and virtual machine manager, working on everything from low-level kernel specifics to high-level management APIs.
• Kubernetes Products: Building MicroK8s for streamlined Kubernetes and Charmed Kubernetes for complex integrations, including work on Kubernetes itself and its operations tooling.
• OpenStack: Delivering Charmed OpenStack, OVN/OVS, and Ceph for large-scale cloud computing environments.

These teams hire system-level C/C++, Golang, Rust, and Python developers for security-critical, performance-critical, and mission-critical code, focusing on software delivery, containers, security, sandboxing, and orchestration.

What You Will Focus On:

• Design and specify new features, building consensus on approach.
• Engage with upstream communities in your area of expertise.
• Conduct security analysis and reviews to ensure defense in depth.
• Create and monitor performance benchmarks to optimize your product.
• Collaborate proactively with a distributed team.
• Write high-quality code to create new features.
• Debug issues and produce high-quality code to fix them.
• Review code produced by other engineers.
• Discuss ideas and collaborate on finding good solutions.

What We Are Looking For:

• An exceptional academic track record from both high school and university.
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science or STEM, or a compelling narrative about your alternative path.
• Drive and a track record of going above-and-beyond expectations.
• Experience working on open source virtualisation or container technologies.
• Experience working in the kernel or very low-level systems.
• 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.
• Ability to travel twice a year for company events (up to two weeks each).

Additional Skills Valued:

• Performance engineering and security experience.

What We Offer:

• Competitive compensation shaped by geographical location, experience, and performance, with annual reviews.
• Performance-driven annual bonus.
• A distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person.
• Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year.
• Annual compensation review and recognition rewards.
• Annual holiday leave, maternity and paternity leave, and Employee Assistance Programme.
• Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues, with Priority Pass and travel upgrades for long-haul events.

About Canonical (Continued)

Canonical is a pioneer in open source, publishing Ubuntu, a critical platform for AI, IoT, and the cloud. We operate as a remote-first company since 2004, challenging our employees to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and elevate their performance. We are an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion.

Key skills/competency

• Containerization
• Virtualisation
• Go
• Rust
• C++
• Linux Kernel
• Open Source
• Cloud Infrastructure
• System Engineering
• Networking