About this role.
Canonical is hiring an OpenStack Engineering Manager for the BootStack team, which designs, builds, and operates private cloud infrastructures. This role involves managing a team of engineers who oversee day-to-day managed services for customer environments, ensuring service level agreements and driving continuous improvement. The ideal candidate has a strong background in OpenStack, Linux, and software engineering, with experience in managing distributed teams. Canonical offers a fully remote work environment with global collaboration and twice-yearly in-person sprints. This position is suited for a technologist who is passionate about open source and cloud technologies and wants to lead a high-performing engineering team.
Role DNA
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Cover letter sample
Dear Hiring Manager,
I am writing to express my interest in the OpenStack Engineering Manager position at Canonical. With over eight years of experience in cloud infrastructure and three years leading distributed engineering teams, I am confident in my ability to drive the success of the BootStack team. My technical background includes deep expertise in OpenStack, Kubernetes, and Linux administration, along with a proven track record of delivering managed services at scale.
In my previous role at [Company], I led a team of 15 engineers responsible for operating private cloud environments for enterprise customers. I implemented agile processes and improved service reliability, achieving a 99.9% uptime SLA. I am skilled in fostering collaboration across geographically dispersed teams and aligning priorities with customer needs.
I am passionate about open source and excited by Canonical's mission to bring Ubuntu to the enterprise. I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to your team and help deliver world-class managed services. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
Sample interview questions
I have managed multiple OpenStack environments with hundreds of nodes, using Ceph for storage and OVS for networking. I ensure high availability by designing for redundancy, using load balancers and multi-region setups. Performance is maintained through regular capacity planning, monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana, and tuning kernel parameters. I also implement automated failover and disaster recovery procedures.
I set clear goals using OKRs, conduct weekly one-on-ones, and use tools like Lattice for continuous feedback. I encourage asynchronous communication and provide opportunities for learning, such as budget for conferences. I also organize virtual team-building activities and ensure recognition for achievements. For development, I create growth plans aligned with individual interests and company needs.
I establish robust monitoring and alerting, with on-call rotations and escalation paths. Automation is key: I implement self-healing scripts and use infrastructure-as-code for consistent deployments. I also conduct regular SLA reviews with customers and proactively identify risks. Communication is transparent; I provide status dashboards and incident reports.
During a major OpenStack control plane outage, I activated an incident response plan, assembled a war room, and delegated tasks based on expertise. I communicated status updates to stakeholders every 30 minutes. We identified a misconfigured RabbitMQ cluster, quickly restored service, and then implemented preventive measures such as automated configuration validation and improved testing. Postmortem led to process improvements.
I allocate a percentage of team capacity to technical debt reduction and automation, separate from operational tasks. We use a Kanban board to visualize work and prioritize based on impact. Regular retrospectives help identify recurring operational issues that can be automated. I also collaborate with product engineering to upstream fixes, reducing long-term maintenance.
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.
We are hiring an Engineering Manager …
This role is an opportunity for a technologist with a passion for Linux and Cloud technologies to build a career with Canonical and drive the success with those leveraging Ubuntu and open source products. If you have an affinity for open source development and a passion for technology, then you will enjoy working with some of the best people in the industry at Canonical.
The BootStack team designs, builds, and operates modern distributed systems on private infrastructure for customers. From Kubernetes to OpenStack and everything in-between, you’ll be working with the latest technology in a fast-paced engineering environment. As a Cloud Engineering Manager for the BootStack team, you will be responsible for managing the engineers that oversee day-to-day Managed Service of customer environments, including customer service management, managed services operations and consistent product improvement engineering. Collaboration with customers, product engineering, and operations is critical to success.
Location: This is a globally remote role.
The role entails
- Manage a growing engineering team to optimise the quality and velocity of both development and operations
- Identify and measure team health indicators
- Implement disciplined engineering and operations processes
- Represent the BootStack team with respect to stakeholders, customers, and external teams
- Ensure proper team focus on priorities, milestones, and deliverables
- Work to meet service level agreements with customer deployments around the globe
- Deliver quality managed services in a consistent, timely manner
What we are looking for in you
- Bachelors (or equivalent) education in a technology field
- Proven track record of professional experience of either software delivery using Python, Go, C, C++, Java, or similar and/or managing operations teams
- Proven experience with OpenStack
- Demonstrated strong commitment to testing methodologies and maintainable code quality
- Experience with Linux system administration, Ubuntu/Debian a plus
- Strong communication and cooperation skills
- Experience with agile software development methodologies
- Experience working in and managing distributed teams
- Technical aptitude for understanding complex distributed systems
- Experience with cloud topologies and technologies
- Travel to team and company events and customer meetings, roughly 20% or less
What we offer colleagues
We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We revisit compensation annually (and more often for graduates and associates) to ensure we recognize outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus or commission. We provide all team members with additional benefits which reflect our values and ideals. We balance 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
- 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, IoT, 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; in order 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 work environment and better products. Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.
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