Telco Field Engineering Director - Canonical

About the Role

Canonical is seeking a Telco Field Engineering Director to lead our worldwide Telco Field Engineering business. You will guide teams in helping customers implement open-source solutions—including Ubuntu, Kubernetes, OpenStack, and MLops platforms—across public clouds and private data centers.

As a leader, you will balance hands-on technical contributions with strategic team management, ensuring our engineers are empowered to deliver high-quality solutions while maintaining technical excellence.

Key Responsibilities

• Leadership: Lead and develop managers and teams of Field Engineers across Presales and Professional Services.
• Strategy: Drive the strategy for telco customer engagements, acting as a trusted advisor to solve complex infrastructure challenges.
• Technical Oversight: Participate in technical presales, troubleshoot issues, and provide guidance on telco cloud infrastructure (NFVi, VIM, MEC).
• Mentorship: Coach and mentor team members, identify team health indicators, and foster career development.
• Collaboration: Work closely with internal leadership, partners, and stakeholders to align engineering roadmaps and project goals.

What We Are Looking For

• Technical Expertise: Deep understanding of telco NFVi (VIM, NFVO, VNFM, MEC) and infrastructure technologies (CPU Pinning, NUMA, SR-IOV, DPDK).
• Domain Knowledge: Experience in at least one of the following: Mobile Packet Core (4G/5G), Private Network, RAN, Voice, IP Backbone, or OSS/BSS.
• Cloud Proficiency: Strong knowledge of Kubernetes, OpenStack, and public cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Leadership Experience: Proven track record of leading, coaching, and mentoring engineering teams.
• Communication: Excellent verbal and written English skills; ability to represent the team to external stakeholders.
• Education: Exceptional academic track record.
• Travel: Willingness to travel up to 25% for company events and customer meetings.

What We Offer

• Distributed work environment with twice-yearly in-person team sprints.
• Annual compensation review and performance-driven bonus.
• Personal learning and development budget of $2,000 USD per year.
• Comprehensive benefits including holiday leave, parental leave, and an Employee Assistance Programme.
• Travel opportunities and priority travel benefits for long-haul company events.