Travel Ops Specialist at Canonical - Remote EMEA — Columbus
Traveler-Friendly Insight
Remote-First, Truly Global: Canonical has operated as a fully distributed company since 2004, making this one of the most nomad-compatible employers in the tech space. The Travel Operations Specialist role is explicitly home-based worldwide (excluding office cities like London, Taipei, and Beijing), giving you genuine location flexibility.
Schedule & Async Culture: Canonical's distributed model across 75+ countries strongly implies an async-friendly working culture. However, travel emergencies and vendor coordination may require some real-time responsiveness across time zones — expect occasional overlap with European and Asia-Pacific business hours given the EMEA hiring hint.
Built-In Travel Perks for Nomads: This role comes with standout perks for travel lovers:
- Priority Pass lounge access for long-haul company events
- Travel upgrades on company trips
- Up to 4 in-person events per year (up to 2 weeks each) in global locations
Visa Considerations: No salary is disclosed, but Canonical's global hiring supports digital nomad visa applications in countries like Portugal (D8 visa), Spain (Nómada Digital), and Estonia (Digital Nomad Visa). Working from Thailand or Indonesia on tourist visas is possible in short rotations given the async flexibility.
Cost of Living Edge: Without a disclosed salary, budgeting is tricky — but even a modest remote salary stretches well in Bangkok (~$1,200/mo living costs), Medellín (~$1,000/mo), or Chiang Mai (~$900/mo), making this role financially attractive from low-cost bases.
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 Travel Operations Specialists to join our Business Services team, ensuring smooth travel for colleagues and guests from countries all around the world to our company meetings and industry events. Our team set travel policy, support travel decisions, respond to travel emergencies and are responsible for supplier relationships.
We look for positive team players who are self-driven and results oriented, with excellent attention to detail. The best candidates show that they are forward planners, reliable and determined, and keen to assume responsibility for projects, processes and policy. We are a unique global business, so we are not looking for candidates with extensive experience so much as excellent organisers and communicators who are keen to develop skills and strive for continuous improvement.
Location: Worldwide - home based, except in locations where we have an office, such as London, Taipei and Beijing.
Responsibilities
- Engage with colleagues to address travel queries and issues
- Work with the wider business services team on company and industry event plans
- Hold travel vendors accountable for providing excellent service
- Check invoices to ensure accurate charges and timely payments, credits and refunds for travel
- Monitor trends, spend, emissions and compliance with company policy
- Track unused tickets, credits and airline points usage
What We Are Looking For
- Excellent academic results at school and university
- A degree in a business or technical subject
- Excellent communication skills
- Responsible and accountable
- Self-awareness and thoughtfulness
- Ability to travel up to four times a year for company events of up to two weeks duration
- Ability to learn new technology and software quickly
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 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
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
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