Senior Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer

Canonical Ltd.; Johannesburg; Remote; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Distributed team sprints

Learning budget USD 2000 per year

Annual compensation review

Recognition rewards

Annual holiday leave

Maternity and paternity leave

Wellness Platform

Travel opportunities

Travel upgrades

Job summary

Canonical is seeking a Senior Site Reliability / GitOps Engineer to join the Information Systems team. You will lead automation initiatives across private and public clouds, applying IaC and GitOps practices to scale services used by millions of Ubuntu users.

You will collaborate with global teams to design production-grade services, enhance monitoring with Prometheus, Grafana, and Elasticsearch, and drive continuous improvement in cloud infrastructure and software operations.

Qualifications

• Proficient in Linux-based hosting architectures driven by IaC across private and public clouds.

Responsibilities

• Drive automation development and GitOps in your team as an embedded tech lead.
• Collaborate with IS architect to align solutions with architectural vision.
• Design services to be offered to the organization as products.
• Develop IaC practices to increase automation and improve IaC processes.
• Automate operations for reusability across private and public clouds.
• Maintain operational responsibility for Canonical’s core services and infrastructure.
• Improve troubleshooting, capacity planning, and performance monitoring with observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Elasticsearch).
• Collaborate with globally distributed engineering, operations, and support peers.
• Provide time for larger projects and automation of manual tasks.
• Share knowledge through design sessions, mentorship, and team collaboration.
• Carry final responsibility for time-critical escalations.

Skills

IaC (Infrastructure as Code)

GitOps

Python

Kubernetes

Linux systems

CI/CD

Observability

Distributed systems

English communication

Team collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Docker

Prometheus

Grafana

Elasticsearch

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 Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer to our Information Systems (IS) team. This role is an opportunity for an “automation-first” senior 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 Senior 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.

As a Senior Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer you will

• Drive the development of automation, Gitops in your team as an embedded tech lead
• Closely collaborate with the IS architect to align your solutions with the IS architecture vision
• Design and architect services that IS can offer to the organization as products
• 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
• 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
• 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 modern view on hosting architecture, driven by infrastructure as code across both private and public clouds.
• A product mindset thriving to develop products rather than solutions.
• Python software development experience, with large projects
• Experience working with Kubernetes or other container orchestration systems.
• Proven exposure to manage and deploy cloud infrastructure with code.
• 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

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 recognize 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
• Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform
• 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 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.

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.