Engineering Manager

Job Summary

The Engineering Manager - App Stores leads a remote team of software engineers building and scaling global software marketplaces (Snap Store and Charmhub.io). Core daily duties include managing and mentoring technical talent, facilitating agile delivery cycles, ensuring healthy code quality through strict peer code reviews, collaborating with product managers and architects to define engineering roadmaps, designing clean microservice APIs in Python and Golang, and partnering with our world-class security team to safeguard real-time package distribution to millions of machines worldwide.

Foundational Leadership & Technical Prerequisites

• Agile Engineering Management: Proven, solid experience leading modern, agile software development practices and running highly effective product engineering teams.
• People Development Track Record: A genuine love for mentoring, developing, and growing technical talent, supported by a demonstrable track record of guiding professional career trajectories.
• Software Engineering Experience: Strong hands-on backend software development experience in Python. Additional professional experience writing Golang is a major plus.
• Technical Core Literacy: Fluent in backend system architectures, microservice patterns, and clean API design principles, keeping you equipped to lead deep code reviews and make architecture decisions.
• Operating System Literacy: Practical, hands-on experience with Linux system administration and terminal environments.
• Team Culture Governance: Proven experience forming a healthy, high-performing, and collaborative engineering culture in alignment with corporate values.
• Communication Articulation: Highly effective written and verbal communication skills in English, capable of managing expectations across management, stakeholders, and open-source communities.
• Global Sprint Mobility: Total willingness and geographical flexibility to travel internationally up to 4 times a year for internal company sprints lasting up to two weeks per event.

Technical Stack Architecture

As an Engineering Manager, you will provide technical leadership for a team operating across the following technological landscape:

• Core Backend Languages: Python, Golang (Go)
• System Architecture Style: Distributed Microservices, High-Scale SaaS Platforms
• Interface Implementations: Clean web service APIs supporting both CLI and web frontend clients
• Target Marketplaces & Components: The Snap Store ecosystem, Charmhub.io, and automated software delivery engines
• Environment Layer: Linux System Environments (Ubuntu Client and Server Infrastructures)

Key Responsibilities

1. Remote Team Leadership & Talent Engineering

• Lead and inspire a remote team of software engineers distributed across your regional time zone.
• Develop engineering talent through continuous coaching, structured mentoring, constructive feedback loops, and hands-on career development paths.
• Nurture a positive, inclusive, and high-performing team spirit that balances rapid deployment with long-term engineering health.

2. Technical Delivery & Agile Roadmap Execution

• Lead code reviews and provide architectural direction, ensuring codebases remain clean, highly maintainable, and thoroughly documented.
• Collaborate closely with other Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and Technical Architects to establish an ambitious yet achievable engineering roadmap.
• Directly contribute to your team's goals by acting as a role model for sound engineering principles, ensuring software is shipped calmly and regularly.
• Drive continuous optimization for system quality, latency profiles, and runtime performance across our microservices layer.

3. Scaled Microservices Architecture & Design

• Guide your team in building clean, resilient web service APIs configured to support both CLI utilities and web frontend applications.
• Master the scale dynamics required to navigate high-volume SaaS load patterns (such as the sudden concurrent load spike generated when a major Ubuntu Desktop snap is updated by its publisher).
• Partner directly with Canonical's world-class security team to build robust defensive measures into our package distribution channels, delivering capabilities safely to global endpoints.

4. Stakeholder Sync & Open-Source Engagement

• Set, manage, and align product expectations with adjacent internal engineering teams, corporate management, and external stakeholders.
• Actively contribute to the leadership community at Canonical, participating in cross-department strategic discussions.
• Engage productively with the broader open-source community, upstream maintainers, and commercial enterprise partners to advance the ecosystem.

Core Competencies & Management Strengths

• Technical Leadership Rigor: Staying technically sharp enough to dig into code blocks and design specs alongside senior developers while stepping back to let the team execute.
• High-Velocity Calm Delivery: Enforcing consistent agile planning and automated testing patterns so the team ships software reliably without burning out or rushing patches.
• Growth-Oriented Mentorship: Tailoring coaching styles to fit different engineers, helping junior devs build technical confidence and senior devs expand into architecture tracks.
• Asynchronous Collaboration Fluency: Communicating engineering specs, roadmaps, and architectural choices clearly in writing to keep global teams aligned across time zones.
• Architectural Scale Reasoning: Making sensible design choices around state, caching, and database schemas when building SaaS tools that process high-volume global traffic.

Expected Outputs & Deliverables

• A high-performing, unblocked engineering team that hits sprint commitments and ships high-quality microservices regularly.
• Well-documented API contracts and stable Python/Golang microservices powering the Snap Store and Charmhub.io.
• Clear, actionable personal development paths and regular career reviews for every direct report on your team.
• Balanced, peer-reviewed technical specifications and code commits that meet Canonical’s security and performance standards.

Skills Required:

• Computer / Software / It / Data