Senior Organisational Development Practitioner
Canonical
Hirezar Summary for South African Applicants
This remote ok full time position at Canonical is open across the EMEA region, which includes South Africa. 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 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.</p>
<p>The company is founder led, profitable and growing.</p>
<p>Canonical builds the open-source software that runs the world’s clouds, devices and AI, and we hold our managers to a high standard. Our Talent Development team exists to make leaders and managers at Canonical genuinely excellent. We define what great management looks like here, and we bring managers and leaders up to that standard through direct, hands-on work, both from the centre and embedded inside engineering and commercial organisations.</p>
<p>As a Senior Organisational Development Practitioner you are the person who sets the bar for how coaching and organisational development is practised here. You coach leaders to a clear standard of management excellence. You diagnose how a whole organisation is led and drive the plan to raise it. You develop the practitioners working in the field. It is one of the most senior and demanding Talent roles at Canonical: hands-on coaching and organisational-development craft with real leaders, in a company that expects you to be credible in a room of directors and to earn that credibility fast.</p>
<p>You work both from the central team and embedded inside a leader's organisation for periods, turning what you learn in the field back into how we develop leaders and managers across Canonical.</p>
<p>Location: These are remote based positions, available across EMEA and the Americas.</p>
<h3><strong>What you deliver</strong></h3>
<p><em>Raising individual leaders</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Coaching leaders to visibly raise their game against a clear standard of management excellence.</li>
<li>Landing the hard conversations, because you coach leaders to make them happen.</li>
<li>Turning 360 feedback into real, followed-through commitments, not a report that gets filed.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Lifting organisations and the company</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Leaving an organisation you take on visibly better led, off a sharp first-weeks diagnosis and a plan you own and drive.</li>
<li>Contributing to defining and implementing new ways of working across our globally distributed company.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Building the function and its standards</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Developing the practitioners in the field so they get visibly better at their craft under your supervision.</li>
<li>Setting the bar for how coaching and organisational development is done at Canonical: owning what exceptional looks like, proving the methods in the field, and holding the practice to them.</li>
<li>Sharpening the management-excellence standard itself across Canonical, by feeding back what you learn in the field.</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>What we are looking for in you</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li>Deep, hands-on coaching and organisational-development practice with real leaders and teams, not just programme design.</li>
<li>A track record of measurably changing how leaders behave, with specific examples you can talk through.</li>
<li>Credibility: you can walk into a room of directors and be taken seriously.</li>
<li>Effectiveness operating inside someone else's organisation without formal authority.</li>
<li>A clear and honest philosophy of development: you know where coaching helps, and you are candid about where a role or fit decision is the right call.</li>
<li>An exceptional academic track record from high school and university.</li>
<li>Excellent written and spoken English.</li>
<li>Sincere personal motivation aligned with our mission.</li>
<li>Willingness to travel up to 4 times a year for internal events. </li>
</ul>
<p>In addition we expect that you will match our values, by being:</p>
<ul>
<li>Precise, taking care to deliver correctness and clarity.</li>
<li>Reliable, delivering high quality work that builds trust and confidence.</li>
<li>Accessible, collaborating to build products and systems that are usable.</li>
<li>Adroit, blending enthusiasm, knowledge, adaptability, style and character.</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>Nice-to-have skills</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li>A management-consulting background: comfortable with ambiguity, able to diagnose, propose and move.</li>
<li>Experience coaching across a distributed, fast-moving, technical organisation.</li>
<li>Experience building competency or development frameworks.</li>
<li>Experience designing and running effective workshops or training sessions, in person and o
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 →