Product Manager

Job Summary

The Product Manager defines, shapes, and guides the technical vision and development lifecycles for Canonical’s enterprise software products and open-source infrastructure. Core daily duties include evaluating cross-functional product roadmaps, translating market research and customer telemetry into clear priorities, collaborating with engineering and UX teams to guide lifecycle execution, authoring technical papers and product specifications, and presenting product trajectories directly to corporate enterprise customers and upstream open-source communities.

Foundational Capabilities & Prerequisites

• Exceptional Academic Performance: A history of outstanding academic results achieved at both high school and university levels.
• Technical Core Literacy: A software engineering or heavily technical background, featuring a strong practical understanding of Linux, the wider open-source software ecosystem, and computer architecture concepts (datacenters, cloud fabrics, or hardware devices).
• Software Domain Exposure: Broad understanding of at least one core software domain or technological ecosystem, including but not limited to Cloud-Native platforms, AI/MLOps, App Management, Ubuntu OS, Embedded IoT, or related vertical systems.
• Content Generation Profile: A strong passion for writing clearly about technical architectures, enterprise tools, and the shifting technology landscape.
• Execution & Ownership Mindset: An exceptional work ethic, a sharp habit of continuous learning, and a natural sense of personal ownership over product successes and failures.
• Strategic Consensus Building: Demonstrated leadership ability to align distributed, diverse engineering teams, resolve structural conflicts, and drive organizational consensus around product priorities.
• Linguistic Articulation: Outstanding verbal and written communication skills in English.
• Global Distributed Mobility: Total willingness and documentation flexibility to travel internationally up to 4 times a year for mandatory company sprints lasting up to two weeks per event.

Valued Industry Multipliers

• Specialized Vertical Familiarity: Applied familiarity operating inside specialized market verticals, such as Telecommunications (Telco), Corporate Finance, Industrial Automation, or Automotive sectors.
• Cloud-Native Infrastructure Depth: Direct familiarity with cloud-native frameworks and ecosystem tools, highlighting Kubernetes, Docker containers, or Ubuntu Snaps.
• Advanced Networking Competence: Understanding of enterprise networking layers, including IPv4/IPv6 routing, firewalls, overlay networks (OVN/OVS), VPN architectures, SR-IOV, or Infiniband structures.
• Ecosystem Partnerships Profile: Solid familiarity with international technology ecosystems, including Silicon manufacturers, IHVs, ISVs, ODMs/OEMs, cloud service providers, and global channel partners.
• Asynchronous Team Direction: Past professional experience managing or guiding distributed product lines across multiple international time zones.

Potential Product & Domain Alignments

During your recruiting evaluation sequence, your engineering expertise will be matched against one of our core operational product tracks:

• Ubuntu Platform: Core OS development spanning Desktop, Server, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Multipass, Gaming frameworks, and Hardware Enablement layers.
• Ubuntu Pro Services: Commercial compliance offerings, standardizations, security engineering tracks, and managed infrastructure services across public cloud and on-prem nodes.
• AI/ML & MLOps: Open-source AI tools, automated AIOps frameworks, model lifecycle management, Kubeflow deployments, MLFlow, KServe integrations, and distributed cloud/edge AI infrastructure.
• Cloud Infrastructure: Public and private cloud optimization, infrastructure automation frameworks, and deep integration of technologies like Kubernetes, MAAS (Metal as a Service), and LXD.
• Application Management: Enterprise operations tools, infrastructure observability, Identity and Access Management (IAM), App Stores, and open technologies such as Grafana, GitOps, and Juju Charms.
• Specialized Industry Verticals: Tailored technical solutions across Telco systems (vRAN/Core Network, SmartNICs), Financial architectures (trading networks, blockchain, regulatory compliance metrics), or Automotive software platforms (autonomous driving safety, infotainment systems, ISO 26262/ISO 21434 standards).

Key Responsibilities

1. Product Lifecycle Management & Vision Architecture

• Lead the end-to-end product development lifecycle, constantly reviewing, refining, and setting the priorities and technical goals for your assigned product line.
• Address common engineering challenges across projects, align cross-functional dependencies, enable informed technical choices, and keep business execution on track.
• Communicate your product vision, milestone updates, and key technical decisions transparently across the organization to manage expectations and ensure complete alignment.

2. Market Auditing & User Experience Refinement

• Conduct deep market research, monitor industry shifts, and analyze client telemetry to uncover new product delivery opportunities within vertical sectors.
• Oversee and conduct routine usability testing, analyze targeted user feedback loops, and iterate on product features to systematically improve user experience.
• Collaborate closely with marketing, sales, and customer support divisions to formulate go-to-market strategies, produce technical documentation, and provide internal training.

3. Commercial Support & Ecosystem Collaboration

• Partner directly with the enterprise sales organization to win new business opportunities by reviewing customer feedback and participating directly in executive customer technical alignment sessions.
• Maintain consistent strategy and execution parameters across separate engineering teams to ensure unified product line cohesion.
• Facilitate constructive collaboration and resolve structural design conflicts across different technical departments.

4. Open-Source Stewardship & Community Engagement

• Promote the open-source way, advocating for open development patterns, and ensuring product roadmaps actively contribute to the health of the open-source community.
• Author clear, engaging white papers, technical blog entries, and documentation files detailing your product's structural advantages.
• Track feature adoption data, present new product iterations at open conferences, and integrate community feedback back into core development backlogs.

Core Competencies & Strategic Strengths

• Technology-to-Business Translation: The ability to analyze highly technical systems—like Kubernetes configurations or kernel extensions—and translate them into clear commercial value propositions.
• Highly Articulate Technical Writing: Drafting precise documentation, white papers, and release notes that communicate complicated technology shifts in a clear, scannable format.
• Structured Focus & Prioritization: Managing multiple feature lines and dependencies simultaneously without losing focus on the high-level strategy.
• Collaborative Consensus Engineering: Uniting opinionated, distributed engineers and business leaders around shared development roadmaps without relying on top-down authority.
• Analytical Problem Solving: Using real-world data, telemetry, and customer feedback to find and resolve friction points in the developer experience.

Skills Required:

• Computer / Software / It / Data