Storytelling and narrative lead

Canonical Ltd.; Dubai; Remote; AED 404,000 - 698,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote work environment

Learning budget $2,000 per year

Annual compensation review

Holiday leave

Parental leave

Employee Assistance Programme

Sprints travel opportunities

Job summary

Canonical Ltd. seeks a storytelling and narrative development lead to head our content marketing. This role focuses on elevating brand positioning through high-quality narrative, process discipline, and performance-driven strategy.

It requires hands-on leadership, coaching for narrative skills, and cross-functional collaboration across marketing, product and brand teams. The ideal candidate is passionate about technology, open source and content excellence, with metrics-driven mindset and the

Qualifications

• 5+ years in content or related roles, with 2+ years in management.
• Proven experience creating authoritative, engaging content.
• Experience with GEO and SEO, and SEO-driven content calendars.
• Excellent project management and interpersonal skills for efficient content production.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute a content strategy that aligns with business goals, SEO and brand.
• Manage content calendar end to end with minimal friction and clear processes.
• Ensure content quality, consistency and brand alignment across outputs.
• Collaborate with web and growth engineering teams to optimize content for search and AI engines.
• Lead quarterly content planning sessions with content specialists, product management and marketing.
• Monitor and report KPIs for the content program using analytics to identify improvements.
• Align messaging to support integrated campaigns across channels with marketing, product and brand teams.

Skills

Content strategy

Team leadership

SEO Knowledge

Writing portfolio

Project management

SEO tools

Education

Bachelor's in Marketing/Communications

Tools

SEO tools

Job description

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 looking for an outstanding storytelling and narrative development lead to lead our content marketing team. Canonical has a robust portfolio of open source products and offers support for a wide range of open source technologies. This role is for someone who cares deeply about narrative quality and wants to elevate our brand positioning. It requires process discipline and creative smarts, leadership skills and performance-driven strategy to ensure our content aligns with our business objectives.

The ideal candidate is passionate about technology, technology marketing and the use of technology in marketing. They would love to gain experience optimizing content processes, coaching others on their narrative skills and building brand authority. They enjoy learning and improving themselves, the team and the organization. They problem solve, get hands-on, experiment, measure and use automation to make daily life easier. To succeed in this role, the candidate must be metrics-driven, highly organized and skilled at team development, capacity planning and cross-functional collaboration.

This role reports to the Director of Communications.

Location: This role is home based in the EMEA region.

What your day will look like

• Develop and execute a content strategy that aligns with our business goals, SEO and brand.
• Manage our content calendar end to end, ensuring content is efficiently produced with minimum friction and process clarity.
• Ensure content quality, consistency and brand alignment in everything we produce.
• Collaborate with our web and growth engineering teams to optimize content for search and AI engines, building on proven SEO or GEO expertise.
• Supervise quarterly content planning sessions and work closely with content specialists, product management and marketing to optimize content plans.
• Monitor and report on KPIs for our content program and use analytics tools to identify improvement opportunities.
• Align messaging to ensure integrated campaign support across channels, working closely with our marketing, product and brand teams.

What we are looking for in you

• At least 5 years of work experience in content or related roles, preferably at technology companies, with 2+ years of experience as a manager or team lead.
• Proven experience creating authoritative and engaging content. Portfolio of written work required.
• Applied knowledge of GEO and SEO, experience with relevant tools and SEO-driven content calendars.
• Excellent project management and interpersonal skills with the ability to create highly efficient processes for content production and reuse.
• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications or a relevant discipline.
• Someone who is passionate about technology and open source.
• A problem solver: you don’t shy away from taking on challenges and see projects through to completion.
• Attention to detail and appreciation for standards: you value quality and accuracy but can adapt quickly when the need arises.

What we offer you

Your base pay will depend on various factors including your geographical location, level of experience, knowledge and skills. In addition to the benefits above, certain roles are also eligible for additional benefits and rewards including annual bonuses and sales incentives based on revenue or utilization. Our compensation philosophy is to ensure equity right across our global workforce.

• In addition to a competitive base pay, we provide all team members with additional benefits, which reflect our values and ideals. Please note that additional benefits may apply depending on the work location and, for more information on these, please ask your Talent Partner.
• Fully remote working environment - we’ve been working remotely since 2004!
• Personal learning and development budget of 2,000 USD per annum
• Annual compensation review
• Recognition rewards
• Annual holiday leave
• Parental Leave
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues at ‘sprints’

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.