Customer Success Manager at Canonical – Open Source in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
Entry Point into a Strategic, High-Growth Department
Canonical explicitly frames this as a "first step in the CSM organisation" within a newly formed strategic department — a green flag for early-career professionals who want to grow alongside a function rather than inherit a rigid structure. Getting in early means more visibility, faster career progression, and the ability to shape processes from the ground up.
Skills Development: This role builds a well-rounded skill set in high demand across the SaaS/cloud industry:
- Open source infrastructure fluency (Kubernetes, OpenStack, Ceph, Ubuntu Pro) — highly marketable in cloud-native roles
- Customer lifecycle management and churn reduction strategy
- Cross-functional collaboration (Sales, Support, Product)
- Data-driven customer health monitoring and risk identification
Compensation Context: No salary is stated, but Canonical uses geo-adjusted pay. Entry-to-mid CSM roles at global tech companies typically range from $50,000–$85,000 USD annually depending on region. Canonical's annual review cycle and performance bonus add meaningful upside, though base may be conservative for senior candidates.
Culture Signals: Remote-first since 2004, with high autonomy and a self-starter expectation. The emphasis on documentation, campaign thinking, and portfolio management suggests a structured, process-oriented culture — better suited to organized professionals than improvisational types.
Green Flag: Strong brand (Ubuntu/Linux ecosystem), real career ladder in a new function. Watch for: "New department" can mean evolving expectations and shifting priorities — ask about headcount growth plans in the interview.p>
The Role of a Customer Success Manager at Canonical
Customer success is a new and strategic department at Canonical, with the objective to reduce risk and churn, facilitate the adoption of new products or services, and support expansion within existing accounts. Customer Success Managers (CSM) are responsible for developing trust with their assigned customers and providing them with the best possible experience navigating Canonical's vast offering. Through a clear understanding of their customer's objectives, the CSM can activate a large range of internal and external capabilities to alleviate any pain point, align expectations, and help draw and deliver on an appropriate collaboration roadmap.
We are growing our Customer Success team to continue offering thoughtful, smart, and precise interactions across our product portfolio, from Ubuntu to open source infrastructure and applications.
This role is a first step in the CSM organisation. Although you will primarily focus on the Tech segment, including the store customers, you will also have a portfolio assigned. Ubuntu is chosen by thousands of new users every month. Our responsibility is to ensure the best user experience for them through problem-solving, onboarding, enablement, and value realisation all the way to success. Collaborating with other teams and participating in campaign efforts, you will connect with a diverse set of users of Canonical products and identify our future champions.
Location: This role will be based remotely worldwide.
What Your Day Will Look Like
- A strong focus on supporting customers by finding solutions to ticket requests.
- Enrich documentation about problem solving, Q&A, and onboarding materials.
- Drive campaigns targeting multiple customers through digital touch-points and activities.
- Identify high potential as well as high risk customers from newly onboarded users or customers.
- Onboard new customers and introduce them to our products and support processes. Products include: Ubuntu Pro, MAAS, Landscape, OpenStack, Ceph, Kubernetes, data applications, and many more.
- Collaborate with Sales and Support in developing and delivering engagement plans that fulfill the customer's objectives.
- Engage with your portfolio of customers to ensure risk identification.
- Collect feedback from customers and format them for review by the product team.
What We Are Looking for in You
- Customer-facing experience
- An empathetic individual with a natural drive to help others
- Passion for technology, infrastructure, and Ubuntu in particular is a must
- Excellent presentation skills
- Strong organisational skills, ability to structure and constantly update documentation
- A team player capable of interacting with all departments internally
Additional Skills That You Might Also Bring
- The Customer Success team strongly appreciates multilingual candidates. If you possess proficiency (both written and spoken) in Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, or Italian, alongside an excellent command of English, please let us know!
What We Offer You
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 recognise outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus. 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 — we've been working remotely since 2004!
- 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 Programme
- Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues from your team and others
- Priority Pass for travel 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 on a daily basis. 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.
Canonical has been a remote-first company since its inception in 2004. Work at Canonical is a step into the future, and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game. Canonical provides a unique window into the world of 21st-century digital business.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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