Opportunity

Software Engineer – Containers & CI/CD at Canonical in Columbus

Location Columbus
Company Canonical
Source jobicy
Posted 2026-10-11 03:45:11

Career & Market Insight

This Software Engineer role at Canonical is a strong career move for engineers looking to build deep expertise in container technologies, open-source infrastructure, and DevOps automation — all of which are among the fastest-growing skill areas in the industry.

Skills & Market Demand: Working on OCI images, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and Python/Go tooling places you at the intersection of cloud-native development and platform engineering — a highly marketable combination. Canonical's Rocks project is an emerging product, meaning early contributors gain significant influence and visibility.

Compensation: No salary range is published. Canonical uses a geo-adjusted model, which can mean below-market base pay in high-cost cities (e.g., London, San Francisco) but competitive packages in mid-cost regions. The annual review cycle and performance bonus partially offset this. Candidates should negotiate clearly.

Work-Life Balance Signals:

  • Green flag: Fully remote since 2004 — not a pandemic pivot, a genuine culture
  • Green flag: Twice-yearly team sprints replace daily commuting with purposeful travel
  • Green flag: $2,000/year L&D budget signals investment in engineers
  • Amber flag: "We expect excellence" and high hiring standards suggest a demanding culture — confirm expectations around on-call and pace during interviews

Career Trajectory: The role spans Graduate to mid-senior level, with mentorship responsibilities signaling a path toward a Staff or Lead Engineer track. Contributing to a well-known open-source ecosystem (Ubuntu) also enhances your public portfolio and community reputation — valuable for long-term career capital.

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.

Canonical is building a new generation of Ubuntu-based container images to simplify open-source application deployment across the world. These container images will be free to use with long-term security commitments, and engineered for performance, security and usability. As with Ubuntu, we will work in the open and welcome community participation.

In this role, you'll be building and maintaining an ever-growing portfolio of container images while working with multiple teams, both inside and outside Canonical, to ensure these are of the highest quality and offer a seamless Ubuntu user experience. You will also be highly involved in the implementation and maintenance of the Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery automation around these container images, for which you are expected to demonstrate deep insights into container-based DevOps.

You will be contributing to fast-moving products like Rocks (OCI images) and thus have the chance to help steer and consolidate this growing team. You'll gain experience with numerous container technologies and open source projects, where your feedback and contributions will be critical to driving widespread container adoption. As an engineer, your seniority will be based on your software development background and ability to lead junior team members.

Come build a rewarding, meaningful career working with the best and brightest people in technology at Canonical. This is an exciting opportunity for experienced software engineers looking for a place to leave their mark, who are passionate about shaping an open source product with the highest quality, with and for the community!

Location: EMEA

This role entails

  • Build robust, scalable, leading-edge container images
  • Work on automated CI/CD processes for building, testing and publishing our container images
  • Write tools and tests for assessing security compliance and cloud-native compatibility
  • Participate in strong engineering process through code and architectural review
  • Contribute, both as a user and developer, to the improvement of our Python- and Go-based container-building tools
  • Provide technical feedback for the team's decision-making process
  • Engage with the open-source community as a subject-matter expert
  • Grow our knowledge base and write documentation
  • Work in a collaborative, agile and globally distributed environment
  • Mentor and help hiring
  • Work from home with global travel up to 15% for internal and external events

What we are looking for in you

  • You are knowledgeable and passionate about software development
  • You are a team player and have experience in collaborative development
  • You have worked with CI/CD systems (e.g. Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Concourse CI, etc.)
  • You are familiar with GitOps principles and workflows
  • You have a track record of delivering timely, high-quality software
  • You have experience building container images
  • You master at least one container management/orchestration tool (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes, etc.)
  • You have experience with Python
  • You are experienced with Linux systems administration and package management
  • You have strong written and verbal communication skills to convey technical concepts
  • You bring clarity to technical and engineering discussions
  • You are someone who strongly believes that sharing is caring, and knowledge is power
  • Your skills range from those of a Graduate to a mid-senior Software Engineer
  • You have a Bachelor's or equivalent in Computer Science, STEM or a similar degree

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 Software Engineer role fully remote or office-based?
The role is fully remote. Canonical has operated as a distributed company since 2004, with colleagues in 75+ countries and very few office-based positions. Up to 15% travel is expected for internal and external events.
What timezone or location is required for this role?
The primary location is listed as EMEA, but the hiring hint also covers APAC, LATAM, Canada, and the USA. Candidates in a broad range of timezones may be considered, though EMEA overlap is likely preferred.
What is the salary for this Software Engineer position at Canonical?
No specific salary range is published. Canonical uses a geo-adjusted compensation model based on location, experience, and performance, with an annual review cycle and a performance-driven bonus or commission.
What technical skills are required for this role?
Key requirements include experience building container images, proficiency with Docker or Kubernetes, CI/CD tooling (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins), Python, and Linux systems administration. Familiarity with GitOps workflows is also expected.
Does Canonical offer a learning and development budget?
Yes, Canonical provides a personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year for all team members, along with a Priority Pass and travel upgrades for long-haul company events.
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