Site Reliability Engineer at Canonical - Cloud SRE in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
Canonical's SRE role is a strong career accelerator for engineers wanting deep expertise in open source infrastructure. The tech stack — OpenStack, Kubernetes, Kubeflow, Kafka, OpenSearch, bare-metal networking — is broad and highly marketable. Engineers who master this stack are in demand across cloud providers, fintech, and enterprise software companies.
Compensation context: Canonical adjusts pay geographically, meaning salaries are location-adjusted rather than US-market-rate across the board. If you're based in a lower-cost country, expect competitive local rates rather than Silicon Valley figures. The bi-annual review cycle and annual bonuses are genuine differentiators over annual-only review companies.
Green flags in this posting:
- Founder-led and profitable — lower risk of sudden layoffs or pivot chaos
- 20+ years of remote-first culture signals genuine async maturity, not a forced post-pandemic policy
- Real skill breadth: from kernel-level Linux to Kubernetes to Python automation — rare in a single role
- $2,000/year L&D budget supports certification in high-demand areas (CKA, AWS, etc.)
Potential considerations:
- On-call obligations for mission-critical infrastructure may affect work-life balance — worth clarifying SLA expectations
- Canonical values high performance explicitly; the culture is results-oriented and may not suit those preferring slower-paced environments
- No explicit mention of equity or stock options — relevant if that's part of your compensation expectations
Overall, this is a strong mid-to-senior level opportunity for an engineer wanting cloud infrastructure depth with a globally respected open source brand on their résumé.
Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets. Our platform, Ubuntu, is 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 globally 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 Site Reliability Engineer
Our goal is to perfect enterprise infrastructure DevOps practices, raising the bar on what's possible with automation by embracing a model-driven approach, whether on-premise or on public clouds.
We run hundreds of private cloud, Kubernetes clusters, and applications for customers across both physical and public cloud estates. We identify and address incidents, monitor and observe applications, anticipate potential issues, and enable product refinement to ultimately achieve high-quality standards in our open source portfolio.
To succeed in this role, you need to have a strong background in Linux, Python, networking, and knowledge of how clouds work. Your work will encompass the entire stack, from bare-metal networking and kernel up to Kubernetes and open source applications. You can expect to be trained in our core technologies like OpenStack, Kubernetes, security standards, open source products like Kubeflow, Kafka, OpenSearch, databases, and many others.
Automation for us is a software engineering problem that we approach with a scientific mindset to bring operations at scale, driven by metrics and code.
Location: Globally remote role
The role
We deploy and run OpenStack, Kubernetes, storage solutions, and open source applications, applying DevOps practices.
To become a member of our team, you need to be a software engineer fluent in Python, you need a genuine interest in the full open source infrastructure stack from bare metal to containers, and you need the ability to work in operations with mission-critical services for global brand-name customers.
As a member of the team, you will gain experience in a broad range of cloud technologies. We evolve our offerings as the state of the art improves, so you get to stay current with the latest capabilities in open source infrastructure.
What we are looking for in you
- Degree in software engineering or computer science
- Python software development experience
- Operational experience in Linux environments
- Experience with Kubernetes deployment or operations
- Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, and accountability
- Ability to travel internationally twice a year, for company events up to two weeks long
Bonus skills
- Familiarity with OpenStack deployment or operations
- Familiarity with public cloud deployment or operations
- Familiarity with private cloud management
What we offer colleagues
We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We adjust compensation every 6 months to ensure we recognize outstanding performance, and in addition to base pay, we offer annual bonuses. 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
- Every 6 months compensation review
- Recognition rewards
- Annual holiday leave
- Maternity and paternity leave
- Employee Assistance Programs
- Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet your 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 creates a better work environment and better products. Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this Site Reliability Engineer role truly fully remote with no location restrictions?
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Is a computer science degree strictly required for this position?
