Associate Linux Support Engineer
Canonical
Hirezar Summary for South African Applicants
This remote ok full time position at Canonical is open worldwide, so South Africans can apply. As a remote position, you can work from anywhere in South Africa — whether you're based in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, or a smaller town.
Job Description
<p>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.</p>
<p>The company is founder led, profitable and growing.</p>
<p>We are hiring an <strong>Associate Support Engineer</strong> to build a career with Canonical and support the technical needs of customers leveraging Ubuntu and open source products. This role is an opportunity for a hands-on engineer with eagerness to learn, a passion for Linux and open source technologies to work with some of the best people in the industry at Canonical.</p>
<p>We regularly solve interesting, technical problems. From triaging complex cloud environments, desktop and server issues, Linux kernel crashes we’ve never seen before to OS configuration issues and root cause analysis, we provide an expert level of support and satisfaction to our peer groups and customers. You will be accountable for delivering an outstanding technical support experience on the full technical stack at Canonical, across cloud, desktop and IoT. From problem qualification to full resolution, you will own and manage your cases. When needed, you will transfer your cases to your colleagues or involve senior engineers. This is a globally remote role.</p>
<p><strong>Location: </strong>This is a globally remote role.</p>
<h3><strong>The role entails</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li>Working from your remote home office to provide technical support for employees.</li>
<li>Being available to take ownership of new cases via telephone, email and web</li>
<li>Acting as an internal customer advocate keeping them updated in a timely manner</li>
<li>Ensuring that each support case owned by you is handled according to our Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the highest possible customer satisfaction by setting the right expectations and fulfilling your commitments.</li>
<li>Contributing new knowledge base articles and maintaining existing articles, ensuring shared knowledge and lessons learned are available to customers.</li>
<li>Drafting and distributing technical notices for internal and external communication.</li>
<li>Prioritising your work in order to accomplish the most important and urgent tasks first</li>
<li>Keeping on learning as our products and services grow and evolve</li>
<li>Understanding Ubuntu development process to be able to set customer expectations correctly on timeline for a fix</li>
<li>Maintaining regular communication and information exchange with the rest of the team, locally and remotely</li>
<li>Identifying and suggesting any opportunities to provide a better service</li>
<li>Participating in a regular weekend working rotation</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>What we are looking for in you</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li>Exceptional academic track record from both high school and university</li>
<li>Undergraduate degree in a technical subject or a compelling narrative about your alternative chosen path. Preferable majors: Computer Science, MIS, Electrical Engineering, etc.</li>
<li>Confidence to respectfully speak up, exchange feedback, and share ideas without hesitation</li>
<li>Track record of going above-and-beyond expectations to achieve outstanding results</li>
<li>Experience with Linux troubleshooting (collecting logs and stack traces, fine-tuning by editing configuration files)</li>
<li>Knowledge or basic hands-on experience on 2 or more of:</li>
<ul>
<li>Linux server administration</li>
<li>Programming fundamentals in any language (bash, Perl, Ruby, Javascript, C or C++, Go)</li>
<li>Networking (bonding, firewalling, bridging, switching, network file system tuning, MTU issues, etc.) </li>
<li>Virtualization / Cloud computing concepts (provisioning, monitoring, orchestration, etc.)</li>
</ul>
<li>Ability to learn quickly, thrive on change and handle the pressure of a customer facing job</li>
<li>Strong written and verbal English communication skills</li>
<li>Appreciative of diversity, polite and effective in a multi-cultural, multi-national organisation</li>
<li>Result-oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments </li>
<li>Ability to travel internationally twice a year, for company events up to two weeks long</li>
</ul>
<p>Noting that we require and will perform a background check for this role.</p>
<h3><strong>Nice-to-have skills</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li>Experience supporting virtualized environments (KVM, Virtual Box, VMWare)</li>
<li>Experience with other open-source desktop technologies</li>
<l
Tips for South African Applicants
Timezone Advantage
South Africa (SAST, UTC+2) overlaps well with European business hours and has a few hours of overlap with US East Coast. Mention your timezone flexibility in your application.
Salary in Context
Even without a listed salary, international remote roles typically pay 2-3x more than equivalent local positions in South Africa due to the exchange rate advantage.
Application Tips
Tailor your CV to international standards — use a clean format, highlight remote work experience, and include your English proficiency. Many SA applicants succeed by emphasising their strong work ethic and cultural adaptability.
Load Shedding Preparedness
If you're applying for a remote role, having a backup power solution (UPS, inverter, or generator) and mobile data as a backup internet connection shows employers you're prepared for South Africa's infrastructure challenges.
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About Canonical
Canonical is a company in the Operations industry that hires remote workers from South Africa. They currently have 230 open positions on Hirezar. View all Canonical jobs →