Engineering Manager, MAAS

Canonical; San Bernardino (CA); Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading provider of open source software, Canonical, is seeking an Engineering Manager for the MAAS team. This role involves leading a distributed team, talent development, and managing expectations across engineering teams. Ideal candidates will have deep Linux knowledge, strong leadership skills, and a proven track record in software development.

Qualifications

• Exceptional academic record from high school and university.
• Strong work ethic and confidence to collaborate with motivated colleagues.
• Result-oriented with a drive to meet commitments.

Responsibilities

• Leading a distributed team in your time zone.
• Talent development through coaching, mentoring, feedback, and career planning.
• Promoting modern software development practices.

Skills

Leadership

Linux

Programming in Python

Programming in Go

Communication

Mentorship

Interpersonal skills

Education

Undergraduate degree in a technical field

Job description

Join to apply for the Engineering Manager, MAAS role 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 widely used in enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation, and IoT. Our customers include top public cloud and silicon providers, along with industry leaders across sectors. The company is founder-led, profitable, and growing.

We are hiring an Engineering Manager to expand the MAAS team. Our mission with MAAS ("Metal as a Service") is to deliver the best solution for building and managing private bare-metal infrastructure, providing a cloud-style on-demand API for physical server provisioning, network configuration, and storage. We seek engineering managers with experience in high-quality software development, high-performance team leadership, and deep familiarity with Linux on physical servers, storage, and data center networking.

MAAS components cover the entire software stack: from hardware detection and provisioning to the web interface, API, and CLI. Effective engineers are fluent across these layers and can anticipate the impacts of design decisions in a complex distributed system.

At Canonical, you must have a solid technical background, but your primary responsibility is to lead and develop your team. You will help engineers grow, deliver outstanding work, find personal and professional satisfaction, and collaborate effectively. Technical leadership and a software engineering background are prerequisites. You will lead, challenge, and develop engineers, influence culture, facilitate technical delivery, and work on strategy and execution with your team. You will also collaborate with other engineering teams, including those responsible for cloud-init, LXD, and cloud offerings.

The ideal candidate will demonstrate leadership qualities, deep Linux knowledge, and the ability to solve challenging distributed systems problems.

Location: This is a work-from-anywhere role in EMEA or the Americas.

The role involves:

1. Leading a distributed team in your time zone (organized by regions such as Americas, EMEA)
2. Talent development through coaching, mentoring, feedback, and career planning
3. Managing expectations with engineering teams, management, and stakeholders
4. Promoting modern software development practices
5. Participating in code and architecture reviews
6. Engaging with broader teams, open source community, and partners
7. Traveling 4-6 weeks annually for internal and external events

Qualifications include:

• Exceptional academic record from high school and university
• Undergraduate degree in a technical field
• Confidence in communication, feedback, and idea sharing
• Proven track record of exceeding expectations
• Leadership, mentorship, and skills development commitment
• Passion for technology demonstrated through personal projects
• Strong work ethic and confidence to collaborate with motivated colleagues
• Excellent English communication and presentation skills
• Linux experience (Debian or Ubuntu preferred)
• Interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, accountability
• Appreciation for diversity and ability to work in a multicultural environment
• Self-motivation and thoughtfulness
• Result-oriented with a drive to meet commitments
• Willingness to travel internationally twice a year for up to two weeks
• Understanding of modern Linux cloud technologies, including networking, storage, containers, and K8s
• Programming experience in Python and Go
• Experience in developing and growing engineering talent

Nice-to-have skills include knowledge of Typescript and modern web frameworks like React, Angular, Svelte, or Vue.