Information Systems Technical Architect

About Canonical

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 more than 80 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. We are proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination, valuing diversity of experience, perspectives, and background.

The Role: Information Systems Technical Architect

We are hiring an Information Systems Technical Architect to define best practices in infrastructure as code at a global scale. You will advance the state of the art and shape the infrastructure behind tens of millions of devices running Ubuntu. The Information Systems (IS) team is responsible for all IT operations at Canonical, including the infrastructure for building, packaging, and distributing Ubuntu globally. As the IS Architect, you will own the design of hardware and software implementation from PCI lanes to CDN and everything in between. Our goal is to be a reference operation, using the latest capabilities in Ubuntu and open source more generally, with the most modern operating principles. Your choices will impact the Ubuntu user experience for millions of users and drive how Canonical's engineers engage with compute and network resources in a DevOps setting.

As the Information Systems Technical Architect, you'll be in a unique position to improve Canonical products and the open-source technologies they're based on. You will lead System Reliability Engineers (SRE) and Data Center Engineers (DCE) to embrace best practices and make informed decisions on technology choices in all aspects of cloud infrastructure and services. You will coach the IS team on automation, reliability, operational/technical scalability, network infrastructure, and security. This is a home-based position, with twice-annual travel to company events totaling around 4 weeks per year.

Key Responsibilities

• Define, get buy-in, and implement the holistic vision of a world-class internal cloud.
• Setup, maintain, and update the technical design roadmap and guidelines for the SREs within IS, aiming to improve reliability, resilience, operational scalability, and technical scalability.
• Collaborate with and provide cloud-ops software development teams with input for roadmap, requirements, and prioritization to build a world-class, highly standardized, and automated operation.
• Provide the IS management with input and advice regarding technology, reliability, resilience, and business cases.
• Lead technical choices to implement solutions as self-service products, ensuring scalable operation.
• Collaborate with product security as well as operations security to set best practices and mitigate new threats in a timely manner.
• Automate operations for reuse across the world's largest companies, considering the complexities of distributed systems.
• Collaborate with development teams to design service architecture, documentation, playbooks, policies, and operational procedures.
• Analyze incidents and events, establish root causes, and identify structural improvements to minimize reoccurrence.

What We Look For

• Exceptional academic track record from both high school and university, or a compelling alternative path.
• Undergraduate degree in a technical subject.
• Confidence to respectfully speak up, exchange feedback, and share ideas without hesitation.
• Track record of going above-and-beyond expectations to achieve outstanding results.
• Extensive knowledge of cloud computing concepts, technologies, and operation.
• Practical knowledge of Linux networking, routing, firewalls, internet transit, and large scale/bandwidth networking.
• Experience dealing with significant production outages, incident response, and postmortems.
• A passion for writing, sharing, and maintaining enterprise open-source software solutions.
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively in English over email, chat, video or voice calls, and in-person.
• Familiarity and passion for open-source, especially Ubuntu or Debian.

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Modern software engineering background (peer-review, unit testing, SCM, CI/CD, Agile).
• Hands-on experience with automatic administration of enterprise Linux servers at scale.

What We Offer

• 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 performance-driven annual bonus or commission.
• Recognition rewards and annual holiday leave.
• Maternity and paternity leave, Employee Assistance Program.
• Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues.
• Priority Pass, and travel upgrades for long-haul company events.

Key skills/competency

• Cloud Computing
• Infrastructure as Code
• Linux Networking
• SRE Leadership
• Automation
• Distributed Systems
• Operational Scalability
• Network Security
• Incident Response
• Open Source Software