Engineering Director, Ubuntu Desktop

2 months ago


London, Greater London, United Kingdom Canonical Full time
About Canonical

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 global distributed collaboration, with colleagues in 70+ countries and few roles based in offices. Teams meet two to four times yearly in person, in interesting locations around the world, to align on strategy and execution.

We are a founder-led, profitable, and growing company.

About the Role

We are hiring a Director of Desktop Engineering to lead our mission to deliver the world's best open source desktop experience and developer platform, for consumers, professionals, and developers. This is a director-level position, responsible for the integrated strategy, architecture, and roadmap across multiple engineering teams working in Rust, C/C++, Flutter, and Golang.

We are looking for a technical leader with a deep understanding of Linux graphics technology, system architecture, and security capability. We are also looking for a leader who has a personal interest in user experience, performance engineering, and consumer applications across form factors such as tablets, mobile, the desktop, and remote computing environments like VDI.

Key Responsibilities
  • Agree strategy for Ubuntu desktop editions, working with community flavors
  • Lead architecture for next-generation desktop services and systems in Rust, C, C++, Flutter, and Golang
  • Ensure that performance engineering, security engineering, and documentation are deep values across the team
  • Identify significant new open source capabilities and prioritize their inclusion in the desktop
  • Challenge teams to rethink and re-imagine the desktop on a decade-long timeline
  • Coordinate roadmap across Ubuntu and Canonical products with wider engineering leadership
  • Shape the design of the Ubuntu experience in heterogeneous environments - with Windows and Mac, on bare metal and cloud
  • Engage with silicon vendors to enable future generations of desktop silicon and hardware
Requirements
  • An exceptional academic track record at both high school and university
  • A degree in software engineering, science, mathematics, or a related field
  • Passion for desktop and graphics technology evidenced by deep personal investment in cutting-edge techniques and capabilities
  • Drive and a track record of excellence in leadership and operations
  • Professional written and spoken English with outstanding presentation skills
  • Deep operational experience with Linux (Ubuntu preferred)
  • Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, and accountability
  • Result-oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments
  • Thoughtfulness and self-motivation
  • Ability to travel twice a year, for company events up to two weeks long
Additional Skills
  • Software engineering management and leadership across multiple products and teams
  • Rust, Golang, or C/C++ architecture, performance, and quality engineering insights
  • Flutter and Dart experience and insights into the Flutter community
  • Deep technical knowledge of graphics hardware and software layers in Linux
About Us

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
  • Employee Assistance Programme
  • Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues
  • Priority Pass, and travel upgrades for long haul company events


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