OpenStack Software Engineer at Canonical - Remote — Columbus
Traveler-Friendly Insight
Canonical is one of the most nomad-friendly employers in tech. The company has operated fully distributed since 2004, with 1,200+ colleagues across 75+ countries and almost no office-based roles — making it structurally built for location-independent work.
Schedule flexibility: No fixed timezone is mandated in the posting, which suggests async-first collaboration is the norm. However, working on a globally distributed engineering team may require occasional overlap with colleagues in EMEA, the Americas, or APAC — expect some schedule flexibility rather than strict 9-to-5 hours in any single timezone.
Travel perks: Canonical includes a Priority Pass (airport lounge access) and funds 2–4 weeks of international travel per year for team summits in interesting global locations — a genuine perk for travel-lovers, not just a burden.
Visa considerations: The role is open across EMEA, LATAM, the US, and Canada. Popular nomad bases that work well:
- Lisbon, Portugal: EU Digital Nomad Visa available; cost of living ~$2,000–$2,800/month for a comfortable lifestyle.
- Medellín, Colombia: No formal nomad visa needed for many nationalities (tourist visa suffices for shorter stays); cost of living ~$1,200–$1,800/month.
- Tbilisi, Georgia: Remotely Green visa or simple tourist entry; very low cost of living ~$800–$1,400/month.
No salary is disclosed, but Canonical is known to pay competitively for senior engineers. Even mid-range tech salaries stretch significantly in lower-cost nomad destinations.
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.
We are hiring a Software Engineer for our OpenStack Engineering team. This is an exciting opportunity for a software engineer passionate about open source software, Linux, and OpenStack. Come build a rewarding, meaningful career working with the best and brightest people in technology at Canonical, a growing international software company.
As a software engineer on the OpenStack Engineering team, you'll be building Charmed OpenStack and Ceph, a suite of open source Python-based charms for deploying and managing OpenStack and Ceph. Your work will bring cloud platform technologies to a wide range of users and computing environments, from desktops to bare metal servers. This role requires a Python software developer with a passion for automating infrastructure as code.
Applicants should be passionate about the future of the software-defined datacenter, distributed systems, and open source. Canonical is a globally distributed team of engineers who share that passion, and you will need to work well in that context. Engineers who thrive at Canonical are mindful of the dynamics of the open source ecosystem, and equally aware of the needs of large, innovative organizations.
This job involves international travel several times a year, usually for one week at a time.
What you'll do- Collaborate proactively with a distributed team
- Write high quality code to create new features
- Debug issues and produce high quality code to fix them
- Review code produced by other engineers
- Discuss ideas and collaborate on finding good solutions
- Ensure the success of OpenStack and Ceph on multiple architectures
- Work from home with global travel 2 to 4 weeks for internal and external events
- You love technology and working with brilliant people
- You are curious, flexible, articulate, and accountable
- You value soft skills and are passionate, enterprising, thoughtful, and self-motivated
- You have a Bachelor's or equivalent in Computer Science, STEM, or similar degree
- You have experience with Python
- You have interest and experience with two or more of the following: Ubuntu Linux (kernel or userspace), Kubernetes, OpenStack, Ceph, AI/ML, QEMU/KVM, LXC/LXD, Python, Go, C, PostgreSQL, Mongo, Debian packaging, scalable web services
- You have experience with non-x86 architectures, including s390, arm64, Power, and others
- You have experience with OpenStack, OVN, Open vSwitch, and other related cloud technologies
- Learning and Development
- Annual Compensation Review
- Recognition Rewards
- Annual Leave
- Priority Pass for travel
- Flexible working option
Canonical believes a diverse workforce enhances our ability to deliver world class software and services which meet the world's computing needs. We are committed to ensuring equal employment opportunities to all qualified individuals. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.
About CanonicalCanonical 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 employerWe 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.
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