From the listing

About the role

Canonical is leading an effort to get Ubuntu fit for applications in automotive, aerospace, industrial robotics, and other highly regulated environments. We want to make Ubuntu the world's best choice for mission-critical systems where complex demands of regulation, compliance, and certification must be met.

As a Staff Engineer, you will transform complex demands into concrete outcomes and engineering excellence practices. This role involves leading and challenging engineering culture across the organization to ensure open-source software succeeds in industrial settings.

You will join the industrial standards team and work closely with company-wide engineering leadership to define and deliver this vision, establishing strategic relations with external working groups and partners.

What you'll do

Lead the effort to unify agile approaches across multiple projects and teams.
Help define Canonical’s ways of working and collaborate with leadership to implement continuous improvement processes.
Establish qualification requirements in support of engineering quality standards.
Define methods and approaches for measuring quality to shape engineering culture.
Establish strategic relations with external working groups, committees, and partners.
Lead teams to adopt and internalize engineering excellence values.

What they're looking for

Strong experience in engineering and process management in an agile environment.
Knowledge or certification of standards addressing quality of software artifacts such as ISO/IEC 25010 or ASPICE.
Track record of developing and growing people and teams.
Experience leading successful compliance and certification efforts.
Understanding of process and stakeholder management for certifications.
Experience with Linux.

Nice to have

Background as a software developer.
Experience in establishing product engineering development metrics and KPIs.
Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

From the company page

Canonical benefits

Work from anywherePaid learning stipendsPaid parental leavePaid holidaysHealth & wellness stipendPaid retreats

◉ Remote policy · in their words

“Canonical has been a fully distributed organization since its origin in 2004. Our remote-first policy enables us to collaborate with the best in the world in our domain.”

Pulled from their careers page · verified by Atlas

The hot takeJeff's read on Canonical

Canonical is a bit tricky for me to review for a few reasons:

Their Glassdoor reviews have dropped down to 3.1 (March 25, 2026), right at my threshold. I'd want to see this start trending in the correct direction in order to consider them for inclusion again.

I like they they have yearly sprints in cool locations like Cape Town, Madrid, and London.

I like that hire-from-anywhere/work-from-anywhere roles are clearly labeled on the job listings as "worldwide."

I'd like to read more about how they feel about their employees traveling as a digital nomad, or being location-independent in general.

I'd like to see more details about the perks they do or don't offer employees, though I suspect they vary by hiring region.

Please get back to me, because I would like to include you again, but need a few more details to do so.

Full read on the company page