Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer

Canonical; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Canonical is a leading open source software provider, hiring a Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer to enhance automation and reliability across private and public clouds. This role emphasizes IaC, Linux proficiency, and a culture of collaboration on distributed teams.

The IS team supports production services used by millions of Ubuntu users, with remote work in any timezone and opportunities to contribute to open source projects.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in CS or related field.
• Strong Python development experience with large projects.
• Experience defining operations in code using version control and CI/CD.
• Solid Linux networking, routing, and firewalls knowledge.
• Experience with cloud computing concepts and technologies.
• Excellent English communication.

Responsibilities

• Apply your IaC experience to automate infrastructure within IS.
• Automate software operations for private and public clouds.
• Develop features to improve resilience and scalability of cloud/container portfolio.
• Maintain operational responsibility for Canonical's core services, networks, and infrastructure.
• Collaborate with development teams to design service architecture, documentation, and playbooks.
• Provide assistance across globally distributed engineering, operations, and support peers.
• Carry final responsibility for time-critical escalations.

Skills

Python development

CI/CD

Linux system administration

IaC

Cloud computing

English communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related engineering field

Tools

Prometheus

Grafana

Elasticsearch

Kubernetes

Terraform

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 aSite Reliability / Gitops Engineer to our Information Systems (IS) team. This role is an opportunity for an “automation-first” technologist with a passion for Linux to build a career with Canonical and drive the success with those leveraging Ubuntu and open source products. If you have experience of IT operations automation, Infrastructure as Code and a passion for technology, then you will enjoy working with some of the best people in the industry at Canonical.

Job Summary

The IS team at Canonical supports and maintains all of Canonical’s IT production services. The team is in charge of running services used by over 60 million Ubuntu users.

As an SRE & Gitops engineer you’ll be in a unique position to drive operations automation to the next level, both in our own private clouds as well as in the public clouds. We do this by utilizing the best of open source infrastructure as code software, software development practices such as CI/CD pipelines, and Canonical’s leading products for software operation automation.

In addition to defining the infrastructure as code, you will improve Canonical products and the open-source technologies they’re based on by providing critical feedback to developers on how their products operate at scale. This is done by submitting bugs (and sometimes writing pull requests) and collaborating on design and implementations with other teams within the company.

You’ll be part of a global team of SREs that work together and support each other to provide the best possible services to our company, Canonical’s customers and the Ubuntu Community.

Location: This role is available remotely in any timezone.

As a Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer engineer you will

• Apply your experience of IaC to develop infrastructure as code practice within IS by constantly increasing automation and improving IaC processes
• Automate software operations for re-usability and consistency across private and public clouds, taking into consideration the complexities of distributed systems
• Develop new features and improve the resilience and scalability of the existing cloud and container portfolio at Canonical
• Maintain operational responsibility for all of Canonical’s core services, networks, and infrastructure
• Develop skills in troubleshooting, capacity planning, and performance investigation, Setting up, maintaining and using observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Elasticsearch; design, implement and maintain monitoring and alerting for various systems and services
• Collaborate with development teams to design service architecture, documentation, playbooks, policies and operational procedures
• Provide assistance and work with globally distributed engineering, operations, and support peers
• Be given uninterrupted development time to focus on larger projects and automation of manual tasks
• Share your experience, know-how and best practices with other team members in design sessions, mentorship and ‘doing work together’
• Carry final responsibility for time‑critical escalations

What we are looking for in you

• A deep experience of, and knowledge to define operations in code, using version control, peer review and CI/CD to roll out changes both to applications and infrastructure
• Strong modern engineering background (peer‑review, unit testing, SCM, CI/CD, Agile)
• Python software development experience, with large projects
• Practical knowledge of Linux networking, routing, and firewalls
• Affinity with various forms of Linux storage, from Ceph to Databases
• Hands‑on experience administering enterprise Linux servers
• Extensive knowledge of cloud computing concepts and technologies
• Bachelor's degree or greater, preferably in computer science or related engineering field
• Able to communicate clearly and effectively in English over email, chat, video or voice calls and in‑person
• Motivated and able to troubleshoot from kernel to web, and willing to ask others when appropriate
• A willingness to be flexible and able to learn new things quickly
• Be inspired by the needs of fast‑changing environments
• Happy to work within distributed teams
• Be passionate and familiarized about open‑source, especially Ubuntu or Debian

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.

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