Linux Desktop Support Associate (London UK office)

Canonical Ltd.; Greater London; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 60,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Learning budget

Annual compensation review

Parental leave

Employee Assistance Programme

Travel opportunities

Travel upgrades for events

Job summary

Canonical Ltd. is seeking a Linux Desktop Support Associate for the London, UK office. You will deliver technical support to employees and customers, assist with AV for conferences, and bridge open-source challenges with clear, human-friendly solutions.

The role emphasizes empathy and collaboration in a fast-moving open-source environment. You will be based on-site in London, working with a team that values technical excellence, problem solving, and proactive knowledge sharing to benefit

Qualifications

• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Academic track record in school and university.
• On-site technical leadership role at London office.

Responsibilities

• Empathetic engagement with customers via remote sessions, tickets, and live chats to resolve technical roadblocks.
• Collaborate with internal engineering teams to translate complex issues into clear actions for customers.
• Owns and communicates status of support cases with integrity and transparency.
• Develop Ubuntu lifecycle understanding to explain timelines for engineering fixes to customers.
• Author and maintain knowledge base articles to benefit the wider open-source community.
• Participate in regular weekend rotation to support global partners.

Skills

Communication

Emotional intelligence

Troubleshooting

Linux basics

Programming basics

Education

Undergraduate degree in technical subject

Tools

KVM/OpenStack

Docker/Kubernetes

LXD/LXC

Storage technologies

Networking basics

Job description

Linux Desktop Support Associate (London UK office)

Office Based - London, UK

This is an opportunity for a prospective Linux Engineer/Administrator with a passion for Linux and Customer Success to build a career with Canonical and support the technical needs of customers leveraging Ubuntu and open source products. You will be accountable for delivering technical support to our employees and customers, as well as facilitating AV support for office conferences and events. 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.

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 1100+ 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.

While our engineers regularly solve deeply interesting, complex technical problems - from triaging cloud environments to root-cause analysis on unseen Linux kernel crashes - this is fundamentally a role rooted in human connection. You will act as a trusted peer and technical guide to external engineering teams, translating intricate open-source challenges into clear, empathetic solutions. We are rapidly expanding and looking for brilliant problem solvers who are just as passionate about building strong, collaborative relationships with customers as they are about the next generation of Canonical solutions.

Location: Office Based in London, England.

The role entails

• Empathetic Engagement: Partner directly with customers across remote sessions, ticketing,, and live conversations to deeply understand and resolve their technical roadblocks.
• Collaborative Problem Solving: Work hand-in-hand with internal engineering teams and regional peer groups to bridge the gap between complex code fixes and real-world customer satisfaction.
• True Ownership: Manage your support cases with a strong sense of personal integrity, ensuring commitments are honored and customer expectations are communicated transparently and predictably.
• Ubuntu Lifecycle Guidance: Develop a rich understanding of the Ubuntu development process, empowering you to give customers clear, human context regarding timelines for engineering fixes.
• Knowledge Advocacy: Author and maintain accessible knowledge base articles, ensuring lessons learned are shared openly to elevate the entire open-source community.
• Operational Reliability: Participate in a regular weekend working rotation to maintain seamless, high-touch continuity of care for our global partners.

What are we looking for in you

• Communication Excellence: Exceptional written and spoken English, with a natural ability to convey technical complexity clearly, warmly, and compellingly.
• The Soft-Skill Edge: A genuine passion for helping people, paired with the emotional intelligence to navigate high-stakes technical situations with composure and empathy.
• Academic Dedication: Exceptional academic track record from both high school and university.
• Educational Background: An undergraduate degree in a technical subject or a compelling narrative about your alternative chosen path.
• On-Site Technical Leadership: Based in our state-of-the-art London, UK office, you will serve as a key technical support resource for our local teams and employees.
• Driven Mindset: A proven track record of going above-and-beyond expectations to deliver meaningful, outstanding results for teams or customers.
• Linux & Cloud Familiarity: A solid foundation in Linux systems, demonstrated through university projects, lab work, or personal exploration, with exposure to one or more of the following:
• Virtualization & Cloud: Using KVM or OpenStack.
• Containers: primarily Docker, LXD/LXC, or Kubernetes.
• Storage Ecosystems: Block, object, and network storage technologies.
• System Networking: Navigating bonding, firewalls, bridging, switching, or MTU tuning.
• Analytical Curiosity: A strong troubleshooting mindset—the ability to look into stack traces or logs, identify OS/application-level bugs, and strategically guide the customer through next steps.
• Development Fundamentals: Basic programming logic in any language to help parse code and collaborate effectively with Canonical Engineering teams.

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 recognise 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
• Employee Assistance Programme
• 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 its 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