Linux SnapD Go Engineer at Canonical | Systems Career in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
Canonical's SnapD team sits at the intersection of systems programming, security, and open source infrastructure — a technically prestigious and highly marketable niche. Working on Linux packaging, container confinement, and device management builds deep, durable skills that transfer to cloud infrastructure, embedded systems, and security engineering roles.
Skills you'll develop:
- Production-grade Golang at systems level — one of the most in-demand backend/infrastructure languages
- Linux kernel primitives: cgroups, namespaces, AppArmor — valuable for Kubernetes, container security, and platform engineering roles
- Distributed team collaboration and async communication — increasingly valued in engineering leadership
- Open source development practices: code review culture, testing discipline, and public-facing engineering
Compensation signals: Canonical geo-adjusts salaries and offers annual reviews plus a performance bonus. This is common for global distributed companies but means total comp varies significantly by country. Candidates in high-cost markets (US, UK, Switzerland) should benchmark carefully — Canonical may pay below US Big Tech rates but above local market in many other regions.
Culture & growth signals: Founder-led, profitable, and bootstrapped — Canonical is stable but not a high-growth startup with equity upside. Green flags include a genuine open source mission, strong engineering culture, and a $2,000/year L&D budget. The role is individual-contributor focused with a clear emphasis on craft and quality.
Red flag to watch: No equity or stock options mentioned. For engineers optimizing for wealth creation, this is worth clarifying before accepting an offer.
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.
The company is founder-led, profitable, and growing.
We are hiring a Linux Devices Software Engineer on our SnapD team to work on mission-critical Golang code, focused on software delivery, containers, security sandboxing, telemetry and device management.
Snaps are next-generation software packaging and delivery for Linux. They are designed for safety, security and robustness, with application-specific confinement of containers optimised for IoT devices, desktops and servers. Our goal is that snaps work across multiple Linux flavors to ensure that publishers have the simplest way to reach the whole Linux world.
This role requires an obsession with quality and performance, for work at the heart of the operating system. It also requires an interest in the software publishing and consumption experience. Applicants should be passionate about open source software development. We value collaboration, peer reviews, good unit/integration testing and maintainable code. General knowledge and experience with Linux as a developer platform is required. Having previous experience with Golang is very nice to have.
Location: This role will be based remotely in the EMEA or Americas regions.
The Role Entails
- Collaborate proactively with a distributed team
- Write high quality code to create new features
- Debug Linux system level issues and produce high quality code to fix them
- Review code produced by other engineers
- Discuss ideas and collaborate on finding good solutions
- Obsess over how to achieve robustness despite unexpected events like power outages
- Work from home with global travel for up to two weeks, twice a year
What We Are Looking For in You
- You love technology and working with brilliant people
- You are curious, flexible, articulate, and accountable
- You value soft skills, are thoughtful and self-motivated
- You have a Bachelor's or equivalent in Computer Science, STEM or similar degree
- You have professional software development experience using Go, Python, C, or C++
- You know Linux system-level fundamentals, e.g. cgroups, namespaces, apparmor
- Commitment to software testing, code reviews and maintainable code
What We Offer Colleagues
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
- Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform
- 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 our 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this role fully remote or does it require office attendance?
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