Description review

Sustaining Operations Engineer

Canonical · Anywhere · back to the listing

HR standards

44/100

poor

Title ↔ description

55/100

needs work

Reads as

Site Reliability Engineer

98% confident

What this role officially is

ICT system administrator — ESCO, the EU occupation classification

ICT system administrators are responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer and network systems, servers, workstations and peripheral devices. They may acquire, install, or upgrade computer components and software; automate routine tasks; write computer programs; troubleshoot; train and supervise staff; and provide technical support. They ensure optimum system integrity, security, backup and performance.

Also known as: enterprise administrator, IT system administrator, ICT systems administrator, ICT sysadmins, IT systems administrator, ICT sysadmin

How others title the same work

Large employers

  • Senior Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer Canonical
  • Senior Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer Canonical Ltd.
  • Senior Site Reliability Engineer Canonical Ltd.
  • Site Reliability / Gitops Engineer Canonical Ltd.
  • Site Reliability Engineer Canonical Ltd.

Startups

  • Senior Software Engineer, Product Infrastructure Atlas
  • Site Reliability Engineer Beam

What the listing never says

  • 32 bullet points. Long requirement lists deter qualified candidates, who read them as hard gates. Scope clarity
  • No section describes what the person would actually do. Scope clarity
  • No pay range published. Candidates cannot tell whether applying is worth their time. Pay transparency

The listing, marked up

Nothing in the wording of this listing tripped a check. The scores above still judge how complete and coherent it is.

This is a fast-paced engineering role in Linux-based software-defined infrastructure and applications, covering all layers of the stack, including bare metal, virtualization (KVM) and containerization (Docker and LXC/LXD), storage (Ceph and Linux filesystems), networking (OVS, OVN and Core networking), up to OpenStack and Kubernetes, and the open source applications running on top of them.

This role is an opportunity for a technologist with a passion for Linux and open source to build a career with Canonical and drive success for our customers, community and the company. If you have great communication skills, and a passion for troubleshooting and fixing issues in technology used by millions across the world, then you will enjoy working with some of the best people in the industry at Canonical.

Location: This is a globally remote role.

This role deals with critical issues in the open source stack that require deep debugging and troubleshooting skills. Our engineers have to be able to work productively at any level of the stack above the kernel, in a wide range of applications, to understand and address the software issues at hand. Our group is critical to the success of our enterprise customers, partners and Ubuntu itself.

You will be the final point of escalation for operational troubleshooting and driving issues to resolution with workarounds, guidance, and fixes to be released upstream and in Ubuntu.

What your day will look like

• Resolve complex customer problems related to Ubuntu, OpenStack, Ceph and/or Kubernetes

• Maintain a close working relationship with Canonical's field, support and product engineering teams

• Participate in upstream communities

• Debug issues, propose workarounds, liaise with Software Engineers on producing a patch

• Demonstrate good judgment in technical methods and techniques

• Prioritize work and manage your time effectively against priorities

• Participate in team activities to improve processes, tools, and documentation

• Maintain clear, technical and concise communications

• Participate in a regular weekend working rotation

• Provide subject matter expertise as the final point of escalation on operational issues

• Work from home and travel internationally up to 10% of work time for team meetings, events and conferences

What we are looking for in you

• Professional experience troubleshooting advanced Linux issues

• Background in Computer Science, STEM or similar

• Exceptionally strong experience with either Linux, LXD, OpenStack, Ceph or Kubernetes

• Strong debugging experience with Python, Go, C or C++ on Linux

• Ability to troubleshoot with gdb, pdb, tcpdump or other tools

• Familiarity with git source code repositories and branches

• An exceptional academic track record from both high school and preferably university

• Willingness to travel up to 4 times a year for internal events

Additional skills that you might also bring

• 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 interest in, and experience with most of the following: Ubuntu Linux - kernel or userspace, Kubernetes, OpenStack, Ceph, QEMU/KVM, LXC/LXD, Python, Go, C, Postgresql, Mongo, Debian packaging, distributed systems

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 that is 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.

#LI-Remote

How this was produced

Highlights are found by rule, not by a model: each one is a phrase matched at a known position, and every note is a template we wrote. The two scores come from a typed-decision model (Jev) that reads the listing against the official role definition and real listings for the same role, and returns probabilities rather than prose — it never writes any of the words on this page, and never chooses what to highlight.

Deterministic penalty applied to the HR score: 16 points (from 60 before penalties). Reviewed 23 Sep 2026.