Engineering Director – Data & Business Systems | Canonical in Columbus

Canonical is a leading provider of open-source software and operating systems for 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 more than 80 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 an Engineering Director who strives for taking ownership of the development and operations of internal business systems integrations, a full data mesh solution built on top of leading open-source software, and the configuration of Salesforce, NetSuite, and other internal business systems. A successful candidate has a track record of leading the configuration, development and integrations of business systems, such as Salesforce or NetSuite, and data engineering/governance solutions. Such a candidate adheres to high engineering quality standards, and continuously develops their skills as well as the skills of their direct reports. This is an exciting opportunity to work with highly enthusiastic people on innovative engineering solutions supporting Canonical's growth.

The Engineering Director will lead the Business Data unit, conceived as three engineering teams that closely collaborate with other engineering and business teams at Canonical. Services designed, developed, and operated by the Commercial Systems unit are at the heart of Canonical's business, data analytics, and reporting. We are looking for a software engineering director to oversee three software teams led by software engineering managers.

The Business Systems team is responsible for systems such as NetSuite, Salesforce, and several others. The engineers work closely with operations teams, implement business processes, and keep the systems compliant, while delivering a first-class experience to Canonical employees using those systems.

The Data Lake team is responsible for building a comprehensive data mesh solution with secure and well-governed access to data sets originating from many internal and external data sources. The team works with well-known open-source tools such as Trino, Ranger, and Superset, and develops tooling facilitating data governance processes.

The Integrations team is responsible for the integrations between internal and external systems used at Canonical and the onboarding of new data sources to the data mesh. The team designs, develops, and operates Python workflows leveraging an open-source workflow orchestration engine, Temporal. The team also integrates internal and external data sources into the data mesh using the open-source ETL solution Airbyte, enabling more data-driven decisions across the organization.

Location: This role is based remotely in the EMEA region.

The Role Entails

• Leading multiple teams of engineers, ranging from graduates to seniors
• Developing your engineering managers to maintain Canonical culture in their teams
• Developing and evangelizing great engineering practices and processes in the teams
• Setting and implementing solid performance management with goals and objectives for your direct reports and teams
• Identifying and measuring indicators of team health, and taking action where needed
• Being accountable for the product development roadmaps across teams
• Being an active part of the Commercial Systems leadership team, collaborating with other leaders
• Expanding your teams by hiring great talent
• Collaborating with stakeholders and product users

What We Are Looking For

• Exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
• Undergraduate degree in a technical subject or a compelling narrative about your alternative chosen path
• Proven ability to drive multiple teams or large teams of software engineers to deliver outstanding results
• Engineering experience in at least one of the following areas: CRM/ERP systems, Python, data engineering/governance, or distributed integrations
• Track record of going above and beyond expectations to achieve outstanding results
• Professional written and spoken English with excellent presentation skills
• Result-oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments
• Ability to travel internationally twice a year, for company events up to two weeks long

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Performance engineering and DevOps/SRE experience
• Experience with compliance

What We Offer

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
• Employee Assistance Program
• 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 its 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.

Canonical is an equal opportunity employer.

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.