UX Designer

Job Summary

The UX Designer designs user interfaces, interactive workflows, and systemic design heuristics for Canonical’s cloud provisioning and cluster management platforms. Core daily responsibilities include converting complex command-line configurations into structured visual layouts; conducting deep technical user research with systems administrators and DevOps engineers; maintaining and evolving centralized design systems; and presenting design positions across cross-functional engineering reviews.

Foundational Capabilities & Prerequisites

• Academic Standard: Exceptional academic track record across both high school and university levels.
• Education Framework: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in User Experience Design, Interaction Design, Product Design, or a core STEM discipline (or a compelling, demonstrable narrative covering your alternative chosen professional path).
• Technical Affiliation: A genuine excitement for building things, exploring hardware mechanics, and translating command-line behaviors into clean interactive models.
• Domain Focus: Deep knowledge and an active passion for user experience heuristics, human-computer interaction (HCI), technology systems, and typographical layout design.
• Research Fluency: Complete confidence planning, conducting, and analyzing user research practices, translating technical friction into structural interface adjustments.
• Professional Attributes: A curious, flexible, and highly scientific approach to continuous learning, combined with a result-oriented drive to ship code-ready assets.
• Global Mobility: Full capability and willingness to travel internationally twice a year for up to two weeks per event to participate in Canonical's global team sprints.
• Communication Standard: Elite written and verbal English communication capacities, with the confidence to articulate design rationale and technical positions clearly before cross-functional teams of engineers, product managers, and executives.

Technical Workflow Architecture

In this infrastructure role, your design cadence directly mirrors the technical constraints of bare-metal computing and containerization:

• Abstract Architecture Modeling: Mapping deeply nested, multi-tier system dependencies—such as network fabrics, hypervisors, storage pools, and Kubernetes pods—into accessible mental models for end-users.
• UX Heuristic Enforcement: Auditing infrastructure products like LXD or MAAS against rigorous usability laws to streamline configuration workflows and minimize error states.
• Systemic Design Evangelism: Contributing reusable components and technical interface paradigms to Canonical’s horizontal design language to secure visual consistency across web and desktop tools.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Hosting design review loops with product managers and kernel engineers to validate that high-fidelity prototypes map perfectly to technical backend capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

1. Enterprise Product Design & Interaction Architecture

• Architect and design user interfaces and workflows that enable global engineering teams to build, scale, and manage self-sovereign clouds utilizing MAAS, LXD, MicroCloud, and Canonical Kubernetes.
• Translate deeply technical concepts, networking structures, and bare-metal cluster management requirements into scannable dashboards and high-efficiency control workflows.
• Apply advanced UX heuristics to simplify dense, complex technical platforms, actively reducing the cognitive load required to manage modern data centers.

2. User Research, Design Systems & Cross-Functional Governance

• Plan and run targeted user research sessions, testing prototypes directly with technical specialists, devops teams, and open-source contributors to uncover behavioral insights.
• Evolve, scale, and champion Canonical's centralized design system, ensuring consistent application of layout frameworks and interactive components across all product categories.
• Collaborate actively in specialized cross-functional working groups to support Canonical design's horizontal initiatives, driving overall system quality up.
• Represent the design org at regional company alignment tracks, presenting product positions with absolute structural clarity and linking tactical UI choices to broader company strategy.

Expected Outputs & Deliverables

• Production-ready user journey models, interactive wireframes, and high-fidelity prototypes detailing core infrastructure systems.
• Documented user research summaries, usability tests, and telemetry feedback matrices compiled from system administrator evaluations.
• Reusable design system assets, component definitions, and technical interface specifications delivered to frontend engineering teams.
• Active contributions and updated design documentation filed inside shared GitHub/Figma repositories across weekly design cycles.

Skills Required:

• Design / Art / Fashion / Media