Remote opportunity at
CanonicalPerformance Engineer - Open Source
Canonical, the publisher of the Ubuntu operating system, seeks a Performance Engineer to join its engineering teams globally. This role focuses on maximizing software performance, correctness,…
Career Tools
About This Role
Canonical, the publisher of the Ubuntu operating system, seeks a Performance Engineer to join its engineering teams globally. This role focuses on maximizing software performance, correctness, and efficiency across open source products spanning from the Linux kernel to cloud, data science, IoT, and web applications. The position suits detail-oriented engineers and precision artists who want to elevate product standards, mentor teams, and build robust measurement frameworks. Canonical operates as a…
Job Description
Canonical, the publisher of the Ubuntu operating system, seeks a Performance Engineer to join its engineering teams globally. This role focuses on maximizing software performance, correctness, and efficiency across open source products spanning from the Linux kernel to cloud, data science, IoT, and web applications. The position suits detail-oriented engineers and precision artists who want to elevate product standards, mentor teams, and build robust measurement frameworks.
Canonical operates as a distributed technology organization with personnel distributed across more than seventy countries. While team members work remotely from home, employees gather in-person twice per year for company events lasting up to two weeks in various international locations. Professionals in this role have the option to rotate between different product teams every two years to continually drive efficiency improvements across the entire software stack.
Responsibilities
- Drive software performance and correctness within a designated project
- Collaborate with international colleagues and the broader open source community
- Develop shared tools, infrastructure, and frameworks for performance measurement, analysis, and reporting
- Coach and train team members to cultivate a strong performance and design culture
- Improve test capabilities, pipelines, and harnesses
- Examine complex systems and codebases to evaluate scalability and performance
- Resolve technical challenges directly or by sharing expertise, leadership, and influence
- Conduct code and technical design reviews
Requirements
- Exceptional academic track record covering both high school and university levels
- Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Physics, or Mathematics
- Demonstrated personal initiative in measuring and boosting code efficiency, correctness, and performance
- Ability to provide respectful feedback, communicate ideas openly, and speak up with confidence
- Track record of exceeding expectations to deliver outstanding outcomes
- Commitment to mentorship, leadership, and continuous skills development
- Strong passion for technology demonstrated through personal projects
- Strong work ethic and professional English communication skills, including presentation abilities
- Familiarity with Linux, with Debian or Ubuntu preferred
- Strong interpersonal skills, adaptability, accountability, and curiosity
- Availability to travel internationally twice annually for company events lasting up to two weeks
Qualifications
- Low-level CPU insights and assembly language familiarity
- Kernel performance knowledge regarding scheduling, hardware acceleration, and context switching
- Distributed systems debugging and tracing expertise
- Compiler level optimization knowledge including profile guided optimization and inlining
- Runtime performance familiarity with JVM, Golang, Python, or NodeJS
- Database performance evaluation skills involving indexing, data modeling, monitoring, and execution plans
- Web browser tracing and JavaScript framework insights
- Proficiency with performance measurement tooling such as flamegraphs, eBPF, D-Trace, and profiling
- Experience with benchmarks like the Phoronix Test Suite
- Test harness development capabilities in Rust, C, C++, Golang, Python, NodeJS, or JavaScript
Core Skills
Benefits
- Distributed work model with twice-yearly in-person team sprints
- Annual personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000
- Regular compensation reviews and performance-driven annual bonus or commission
- Recognition rewards
- Paid annual holiday leave
- Maternity and paternity leave
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Priority Pass and travel upgrades for long-haul company events
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
Is this a remote position?
Yes, Canonical operates as a distributed company where colleagues work from home, though employees gather in person twice a year for team events.
What is the salary for this role?
The source posting does not specify the salary for this role.
What travel is required for this role?
Employees are required to travel internationally twice a year for company events that can last up to two weeks.
What educational background is required?
Candidates must have an exceptional academic record and hold an undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Physics.
Sample Interview Questions
AI-generated questions tailored to this specific role — a preview of the full practice set.