Software Engineer - Solutions Engineering
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 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>Help us shape the future of open source IT, devops, and IS, from bare metal to containers. Our goal is to revolutionise open source application and infrastructure operations.</p>
<p>We want to transform the world of software operations by enabling true model-driven operations via next-generation infrastructure-as-code. This will allow companies to run very efficient bare-metal operations for high-performance computing, private cloud, data lakes, AI/ML, and analytics. We need to invent some new technology, and we need to build some new products; we are therefore looking for someone who can lead and inspire a regional software engineering team to fulfill this initiative.</p>
<p>The Solutions Engineering team works in close collaboration with our managed infrastructure operations team, which runs many private OpenStack clouds and Kubernetes clusters for customers around the world. This enables us to improve our infra-as-code products based on our own real experience, mirroring that of our users and customers. We work in Python, creating open source automation capabilities that simplify operations for anybody, anywhere, who is building on Ubuntu.</p>
<p>Most of the team's work involves pure Python software development focused on enabling true DevOps workflows. We strive for high quality in both design, documentation, tests, and performance as we enhance operations code packages and Ubuntu itself in order to ensure our platform is the easiest, most robust, and best performing for driving your infrastructure.</p>
<p>This role is ideal for software engineers who want to work in a global team, have a passion for distributed systems and cloud computing, and an interest in the entire Linux stack - from kernel to networking to virtualization and containers.</p>
<h3>What you will do</h3>
<ul>
<li>Work in Python and Golang to design and deliver open source software operations code</li>
<li>Work with the entire Linux stack, from kernel, networking, storage, to applications</li>
<li>Shape high quality open source monitoring and alerting infrastructure</li>
<li>Rethink open source operations for our customers and open source community</li>
<li>Demonstrate sound engineering design and testing principles in your code</li>
<li>Follow agile software development practices</li>
<li>Coach and develop your colleagues where you have insights</li>
<li>Grow a healthy, collaborative engineering culture in line with the company values</li>
<li>Global travel up to 10% of time for internal and external events</li>
</ul>
<h3>Who you are</h3>
<ul>
<li>You are a passionate Python developer</li>
<li>You are organised and want your team to deliver timely, high quality software</li>
<li>You understand the importance of reliable operations in an agile world</li>
<li>You have sound knowledge of cloud computing concepts & technologies</li>
<li>You have practical knowledge of Linux and networking</li>
<li>You are a lifelong learner</li>
</ul>
<h3>Bonus points for</h3>
<ul>
<li>You have graduated with a university degree in Computer Science or related software engineering field</li>
<li>Golang programming skills</li>
</ul>
<h3>What we offer colleagues</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<ul>
<li>Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person</li>
<li>Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year</li>
<li>Annual compensation review</li>
<li>Recognition rewards</li>
<li>Annual holiday leave</li>
<li>Maternity and paternity leave</li>
<li>Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform</li>
<li>Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues</li>
<li>Priority Pass and travel upgrades for long-haul company events</li>
</ul>
<h3>About Canonical</h3>
<p>Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. As
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 →