Alliances Field Engineer at Canonical - Remote Worldwide — Columbus
Traveler-Friendly Insight
Canonical is one of the most nomad-friendly employers in tech — fully remote since 2004, hiring worldwide with no country restrictions mentioned. This role is genuinely location-independent, letting you work from virtually any country with a reliable internet connection.
Schedule flexibility: Canonical operates as a distributed-first company with colleagues across 70+ countries, which strongly implies an async-friendly culture. However, this is a partner-facing engineering role, so expect some synchronous calls timed to major partners' timezones (likely US, EU, and APAC windows depending on your assigned accounts). Up to 30% travel is required, which suits nomads who enjoy structured destination changes rather than purely desk-bound work.
Visa considerations: Because hiring is worldwide, nomads can leverage options such as:
- Portugal (Lisbon): Digital Nomad Visa D8 — ideal base with low cost of living (~$2,000–2,500/month) and excellent coworking scene.
- Thailand (Bangkok/Chiang Mai): LTR (Long-Term Resident) Visa for remote workers — very low cost of living (~$1,200–1,800/month), strong tech community.
- Colombia (Medellín): Digital Nomad Visa (up to 2 years) — ~$1,500–2,000/month, vibrant expat community.
Travel perks are a standout: Canonical provides a Priority Pass and travel upgrades for company events, plus twice-yearly in-person team sprints in varied global locations — paid travel that doubles as destination variety for nomads. The $2,000 annual learning budget could also fund coworking memberships or relevant certifications.
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 1000+ colleagues in 70+ countries and very 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.
The company is founder led, profitable and growing. We are hiring an Alliances Field Engineer to help our biggest partners (companies like Intel, Nvidia, Google, Dell, HP, Accenture, Tata and the like) understand and embrace our open source platform for themselves and their customers.
Our worldwide field engineering team apply expert insights to real-world customer problems, enabling the enterprise adoption of Ubuntu, OpenStack, Kubernetes, AI/MLOps and a wide range of associated technologies. We are experts in the whole open source stack, from kernel to desktop, from cloud to the edge. Our team is also interested in business problems — building things reliably, efficiently and cost-effectively — and we have to learn to speak the language of our customers and their industries.
We help global companies embrace public and private cloud infrastructure, cloud native operations, and open source applications. For this team we are looking for several Alliances Engineers to support OEM (hardware manufacturers), GSI (global system integrators), ISV (independent software vendors), Channel partners and Public Cloud alliance partners. You will support various alliances and partners of Canonical to adopt our products and technologies, and help business leaders define joint go-to-market programs with partners from the technical standpoint.
We often say that our field engineers have 'the hardest job at Canonical' because customers can ask about any aspect of our solutions and products and expect a thoughtful, well-informed answer. We always want to do the best thing for our partners and customers, regardless of our company interests, and field engineers are the people we trust to ensure that is true.
Location: This is a home-based role — we are hiring worldwide.
What your day will look like
- Understand Ubuntu, Linux, networking and services in real-world environments
- Architect cloud infrastructure solutions like Kubernetes, Kubeflow, OpenStack, Ceph, and Spark either on-premises or in Public Cloud (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud)
- Architect and integrate popular open source software such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Kafka, Cassandra and NGINX
- Help partners to offer and architect joint solutions utilizing Canonical's technologies on top of public clouds and in the data center
- Design and publish joint Reference Architectures and perform technical validations with various partners
- Prepare and run onboarding sessions/workshops with various partners' teams to promote Canonical products and solutions
If you have a passion for the latest open source technologies, cloud-native development, data center technologies such as Kubernetes and computer networking, you will love the Alliances Engineer role at Canonical.
What we are looking for in you
- Extensive experience with Linux (Ubuntu preferred), Kubernetes, Ceph, software automation
- Experience designing and implementing solutions on top of public or private clouds
- Python and bash understanding, troubleshooting skills
- Fluent written and spoken English
- Excellent communication and presentation skills
- High motivation, ability to multi-task and follow up reliably on commitments
- Interest in customer-facing engagement, including pitching, demonstrating and understanding customer environment and needs
- Interest in new technologies like LXD, Juju and Snaps
- Ability to travel globally up to 30% of the time
- Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics or related technical field experience
What we offer you
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 recognise outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus. 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 — we've been working remotely since 2004!
- 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 from your team and others
- Priority Pass for travel 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 on a daily basis. 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.
Canonical has been a remote-first company since its inception in 2004. Work at Canonical is a step into the future, and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game. Canonical provides a unique window into the world of 21st-century digital business.
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
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