Senior Design Manager (Infrastructure)

Canonical; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-friendly environment

Learning budget 2,000 USD/year

Annual compensation review

Recognition rewards

Annual holiday leave

Parental Leave

Employee Assistance Programme

Sprints travel opportunities

Priority Pass for travel upgrades

Job summary

Canonical is hiring a Senior Design Manager to lead the Infrastructure Design team, shaping the tools developers rely on and driving quality improvements. You will coach designers, manage roadmaps, and ensure deadlines are met while aligning with product and engineering goals.

The role emphasizes open source values, remote collaboration, and ongoing professional growth. You will guide multi-disciplinary teams across cloud and distribution workflows, helping evolve security, packaging, and

Qualifications

• Outstanding quality in UX design and tech-savviness
• Formal education in design or related field
• Experience leading design teams in technical domains

Responsibilities

• Review design team output for quality and impact
• Support designers' professional growth and career progression
• Improve operational workflows and collaboration with Web Engineering
• Define and validate outcomes with engineering stakeholders
• Evolve design systems and guidelines for consistency and efficiency
• Coordinate with design leadership to mature practice
• Foster collaboration and knowledge sharing across teams
• Engage with the open source community to communicate value and learn

Skills

UX design quality

Technology savviness

Team leadership

Communication with stakeholders

Delivery governance

Quantitative optimization

Balancing consistency and innovation

Travel readiness

Education

Design or behavioral science degree

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 hiring a senior design manager to play a key role making open source software available to the world. Our Design function ensures the experience of the software and infrastructure we build is true to our intentions, and delivers the tools our community and customers need. The Design Manager makes this possible through leadership within, and beyond, our teams.

As a Senior Design Manager, you bring both experience managing design teams and have expertise in a deeply technical domain. This enables you to coach designers in creating tools for developers and cloud engineers, and cross-context to move towards tangible outcomes and lift the quality of their work. You will manage expectations and ensure deadlines are met in a timely manner against your roadmap. You will be able to communicate clearly and actively listen to product and engineering stakeholders, and your team, to drive sustainable quality improvements and guide individuals towards meaningful growth.

Leading the Infrastructure Design team, you will take responsibility for the products that help to build cloud experiences and software distribution mechanisms, and you will help to evolve the security of how software is packaged and delivered.

Location: This role will be based remotely in the EMEA region

What the role entails

• Reviewing the work of your design team for quality
• Working with individual designers to support their professional growth
• Continuously improving operational workflows, including production outsourcing and collaboration with Web Engineering
• Working with stakeholders, especially the Engineering organization, to clearly define and validate outcomes
• Evolving design systems and guidelines to drive consistent quality and improve efficiency
• Coordinating with the rest of design leadership to mature our collective practice
• Bringing your team and others together to share their work and strengthen culture
• Engaging the open source community to learn and make the value of our work legible

What we are looking for in you

• A portfolio demonstrating outstanding quality in UX design and savviness in technology
• Exceptional educational achievements in design or related behavioral science discipline
• Full lifecycle experience from user needs discovery through validation and implementation guidance
• Commitment to transparent project delivery and owning team deadlines
• Experience of managing a team that interacts with technical stakeholders
• Familiarity with quantitative optimisation approaches
• A passion for balancing consistency and innovation
• Willingness to travel up to 4 times a year for internal events

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 below, certain roles are also eligible for additional benefits and rewards including annual bonuses and sales incentives based on revenue or utilisation. 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, you can ask in the later stages of the recruitment process.

• Fully remote working environment - we’ve been working remotely since 2004!
• Personal learning and development budget of 2,000USD 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’
• Priority Pass for travel and travel upgrades for long haul company events

About Canonical

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm that is 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 on a daily basis. 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.

Canonical has been a remote-first company since its inception in 2004. Work at Canonical is a step into the future, and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game. Canonical provides a unique window into the world of 21st-century digital business.

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.