Distributed Systems Testing Software Engineer, Python / Go in Glasgow

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 Distributed Systems Testing with a passion for building and validating resilient distributed systems. You drive the success of those leveraging Canonical’s Ubuntu and Juju to build multi‑cloud deployable applications. We see quality engineering as a first class engineering practice and are looking for people who can bring deep engineering insights and a data‑driven approach to testing, test automation, reporting and data analytics.

The Distributed Systems testing team at Canonical is responsible for the high quality of Canonical’s Cloud solutions based on for example Juju, Terraform, OpenStack, or Kubernetes. Systems are tested and deployed under highly diverse conditions, from bare metal in customer data centers to public clouds such as AWS, GCE, Azure. As a software engineer you will have the opportunity to develop CI pipelines which power Canonical’s cloud integration testing and reporting. You will help test our products on new clouds and advance our AI/ML pipelines for automatic analysis of test results.

A successful candidate is interested in tackling these problems, as well as imagining and leading new initiatives within the team and across Canonical. The role entails:

• Creating automated testing approaches and infrastructure for validating reliability, performance, and resilience of cloud orchestration tools and applications
• Enabling engineering teams across Canonical to develop software with confidence by making distributed system testing tooling available across the company
• Enhancing continuous integration pipelines for deploying and testing Canonical’s cloud native products such as Kubeflow
• Deploying, managing, and debugging highly distributed systems on clouds and bare metal
• Monitoring and reporting on automated testing efforts
• Collaborating daily with a globally distributed team

What we are looking for in you:

• Solid background in modern test processes and strategies
• Experience with Python or Go development
• Strong object oriented development skills
• Working knowledge of continuous integration tools such as Jenkins, CircleCI, GitHub Actions
• Knowledge of networking technologies and fundamentals
• Solid understanding of the Linux system architecture
• Complex abstract thinking
• 2-4 weeks of international travel per year

Nice-to-have skills:

• Ability to develop and ship modern production‑grade web applications
• Ability to operate data platforms: key‑value stores, relational or document databases, event buses
• Data collection and analytics skills for large multidimensional datasets
• Experience with AI/ML pipelines
• Experience with cloud technologies such as OpenStack, Kubernetes, Terraform and AWS

What we offer colleagues:

• 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
• Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform
• 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.