Software Engineering Manager (Backend SaaS) at Canonical

Role overview

This job description has been rewritten in fresh language using the facts in the listing. Source credit and original listing details are available below.

Canonical is hiring an engineering manager to lead a major new phase of Landscape, its systems management service for Ubuntu. The product serves thousands of deployments, and the team’s goal is to make it easier for enterprises to manage large, diverse Ubuntu estates across cloud, bare metal, vSphere, desktops, and devices. This is an evolution of an established system, not a greenfield project.

You will shape the engineering roadmap with product managers and lead the team’s technical strategy and delivery. The work includes modernizing Landscape’s SaaS and on-premises technologies, architecture, patterns, and operations so organizations can manage policy and understand compliance across complex environments. The current stack includes Python, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, HAProxy, and ReactJS; other Canonical web services also use Golang.

The role combines technical leadership with people management. You will guide and develop engineers, contribute to engineering goals, lead code reviews and architectural decisions, and promote sound practices in documentation, quality, performance, and delivery. You will collaborate with teams across Canonical, business stakeholders, open-source communities, and commercial partners.

This is a remote role, with work from home and 4–6 weeks of global travel each year for internal and external events. Canonical’s distributed teams meet in person two to four times yearly; the colleague benefits listed for this role include twice-yearly team sprints, a USD 2,000 annual learning and development budget, annual compensation reviews, recognition rewards, holiday and parental leave, a team assistance and wellness program, and travel-related opportunities and upgrades. Compensation is shaped by location, experience, and performance, with an annual performance-driven bonus or commission in addition to base pay; no specific pay range is stated.

Role at a glance: Lead the engineering team and technical roadmap for Canonical’s Landscape Ubuntu estate management service.

Responsibilities mentioned in the listing

• Build and lead a regional engineering team, developing colleagues through coaching, mentoring, feedback, and career support.
• Set technical direction, contribute to team goals, and lead code reviews, architecture, and modern agile development practices.
• Create an engineering roadmap with product managers and manage expectations with engineering teams, management, and external stakeholders.
• Support a collaborative, high-performing engineering culture aligned with company values and take part in the organizational leadership team.
• Build automated, reliable image delivery, testing, and publication pipelines.
• Collaborate with Canonical teams, the open-source community, and commercial partners.
• Work remotely and travel globally for 4–6 weeks annually for internal and external events.

Qualifications stated in the listing

• Technical leadership experience and a software engineering background.
• Experience developing software in Python or Golang, with fluency in the language, architecture, and components used by the team.
• A track record of mentoring, developing, and growing people.
• Knowledge of and enthusiasm for software development, with a focus on timely, high-quality delivery.
• Experience with and commitment to agile development methods.
• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent in computer science, STEM, or a similar field.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills.
• Practical Linux system administration experience.