C

Telco Cloud Field Engineer

Canonical

Remote OK
Home Based - Americas; Home based - EMEA
EMEA
US hours

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><strong>The role of a Telecommunications Field Engineer at Canonical</strong></p>
<p>The telco industry is moving to software-defined services. This transformation is driven by open source software, cloud computing and the move to VNF / CNF approaches. Canonical Ubuntu is a key platform for telco innovation, and we are growing our team of specialists who work in the industry to accelerate the change.</p>
<p>Canonical enables operators and communications service providers to embrace this new world, with a focus on platforms such as Ubuntu, OpenStack, and Kubernetes, and reusable, high quality automation for operations at scale.</p>
<p>As part of the Canonical Field Engineering organization, you will lead customers through the design and delivery of OpenStack, Kubernetes, and software-defined networking solutions. Your passion for open-source technologies will enable customers to understand and operate advanced infrastructure substrates to meet the demands of 5G, sovereign AI, and beyond.</p>
<p><strong>Location:</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Remote-based, Americas and EMEA</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>What your day will look like</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Translate Service Provider requirements into practical telco cloud platform architectures, enabling VNF/CNF, NFV, and MEC workloads at scale</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Provide technical pre-sales consulting to Service Provider teams</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Design and implement telco-grade open source multi-tenant private clouds and micro clouds</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Investigate, report and/or fix software defects uncovered during customer deployments</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Demonstrate advanced Infrastructure as code (IaC) techniques relevant to telco</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Architect and implement advanced, resilient Service Provider Cloud and Application solutions</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Design and deliver software defined infrastructure with OpenStack, Kubernetes, MAAS and Ceph</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Help customers adopt advanced Bare Metal, Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud solutions</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Support customer tenant onboarding, participate in architectural and business capability discussions, and enable successful adoption and production readiness of customer use cases</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Learn from customer engagements and drive meaningful product improvements</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Shape our roadmap to accelerate our growth in the telco market</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>What we are looking for in you</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>A thorough technical understanding of the telco NFVi (VIM), NFVO, VNFM and MEC space and key telco cloud infrastructure technologies like CPU Pinning, NUMA, SR-IOV, DPDK, etc</li>
<li>Familiarity with telco architecture and industry standards</li>
<li>Working knowledge of at least <strong>one of the following domains</strong>: Mobile Packet Core (4G/5G), Private Network, Radio Access Network (RAN), Voice, IP Backbone, VAS or OSS/BSS</li>
<li>Working knowledge of Linux, Networking, OpenStack and Kubernetes</li>
<li>Python software development experience for automation</li>
<li>Ability to lead complex projects from start to finish</li>
<li>A collaborative, customer-centric mindset with a strong focus on customer success</li>
<li>Able to travel up to 25% of the time based on business requirements for events, customer meetings, project delivery</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Additional skills that you might also bring</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Second language such as Spanish, Portuguese or French</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Track record of open source contributions</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Understanding of AI and machine learning concepts, including sovereign AI, and their potential applications in telco environments, such as network optimization, predictive maintenance, unified communication, and customer experience improvement</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Exposure to frameworks such as 3GPP, TM Forum ODA, eTOM, ETSI NFV, ONAP, O-RAN, or similar is a plus</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>What we offer you</strong></p>
<p>Your base pay will depend on various factors including your geographical location, level of experience, knowledge and skills. In addition to the benefits above, certain roles are also eligible for additional benefits and rewards including annual bonuses and sales incentives based on revenue or utilisation. Our compensation philosophy is to ensure equity right across our global workforce.</p>
<p>In addition to a competitive base pay, we provide all team members with additional benefits, which reflect our values and ideals. Please note that additional benefits may apply depending on the work location and, for more information on these, you can ask in the later stages of the recruitment proces

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.

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 →