Alliances Field Engineer

Canonical publishes Ubuntu, the Linux platform behind a large share of the world's public cloud, AI, IoT and enterprise infrastructure. The company is founder-led, profitable, and a pioneer of global distributed collaboration with 1,000+ colleagues in 70+ countries and very few office-based roles. It has been remote-first since 2004.

THE ROLE

Canonical is hiring an Alliances Field Engineer to help its largest partners understand and adopt its open source platform. The partner list is the notable part: Intel, Nvidia, Google, Dell, HP, Accenture and Tata among others.

The team supports OEMs, global system integrators, independent software vendors, channel partners and public cloud alliance partners. Canonical is hiring several Alliances Engineers for this team, so this is not a single vacancy.

Canonical say plainly that field engineers have "the hardest job at Canonical", because partners and customers can ask about any aspect of the product stack and expect a well-informed answer. The team is expected to do the right thing for the partner regardless of Canonical's own commercial interest.

WHAT YOUR DAY LOOKS LIKE

• Understanding Ubuntu, Linux, networking and services in real-world environments
• Architecting cloud infrastructure solutions including Kubernetes, Kubeflow, OpenStack, Ceph and Spark, on-premises or in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud
• Architecting and integrating popular open source software such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Kafka, Cassandra and NGINX
• Helping partners offer and architect joint solutions on Canonical technologies, in public cloud and the data centre
• Designing and publishing joint Reference Architectures and running technical validations with partners
• Preparing and running onboarding sessions and workshops with partner teams

WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR

• Extensive experience with Linux, Ubuntu preferred, plus Kubernetes, Ceph and software automation
• Experience designing and implementing solutions on public or private clouds
• Python and bash understanding, with troubleshooting skills
• Fluent written and spoken English, with excellent communication and presentation skills
• High motivation, ability to multi-task and follow up reliably on commitments
• Interest in customer-facing engagement, including pitching and demonstrating
• Interest in newer technologies such as LXD, Juju and Snaps
• Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics or related technical field experience

THE TRAVEL COMMITMENT

This role requires the ability to travel globally up to 30 percent of the time. That is on top of Canonical's standard requirement to meet in person two to four times a year at company events lasting one to two weeks, in locations likely to require international travel, visas and vaccinations.

Field Engineers also travel to external events and customer offices for project work, so the travel here is meaningfully higher than most Canonical roles.

BENEFITS

• Distributed work with twice-yearly in-person team sprints
• USD 2,000 personal learning and development budget per year
• Annual compensation review, plus a performance-driven annual bonus
• Recognition rewards, annual holiday leave, maternity and paternity leave
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Priority Pass for travel and travel upgrades for long-haul company events

Compensation reflects geographical location, experience and performance, and is reviewed annually. No figures are published on this listing.

LOCATION

Both the header and the body agree: Home based, Worldwide. The listing states directly that this is a home-based role and Canonical is hiring worldwide.

BEFORE YOU APPLY

AI use disqualifies your application. The form requires you to confirm you used only your own words, and states that plagiarism or generated content will disqualify you.

Expect Canonical's standard academic screening: high-school mathematics and native-language performance bands justified against national scoring systems, plus your degree result. Candidates without a degree are explicitly welcome and may enter "no degree".

Two written answers are required: your professional experience working with open source, and your experience in customer-facing technical roles, especially with silicon companies, hardware or PC OEMs, GSIs, ISVs or public clouds.

You will also be asked how many companies you have worked for in the last ten years since graduating.