Canonical

The company behind Ubuntu Linux. Fully remote by design since 2004. ~1,200 employees across 75+ countries. Bootstrapped by founder Mark Shuttleworth; no VC.

Services Open Source / Linux / Cloud Infrastructure
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London, UK (Remote-First, 75+ countries) HQ
1,200 employees
2004 founded

What is Canonical?

Canonical is the commercial company behind Ubuntu, the most widely-deployed Linux distribution in the world. Founded in 2004 by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, the company was self-funded from Shuttleworth's exit from Thawte (a certificate authority sold to VeriSign in 1999) and has never taken venture capital. That independence has shaped almost everything about how Canonical works: the company has been fully remote by design since its first day, has grown deliberately rather than on VC timelines, and treats open-source software as the product with commercial support and adjacent tooling layered on top. Canonical ships and maintains Ubuntu (free desktop, server, IoT, and cloud editions), Ubuntu Pro (paid extended-support subscriptions), MAAS (metal-as-a-service bare-metal provisioning), Landscape (fleet management), Juju (application deployment), Snap (universal application packaging), MicroK8s (lightweight Kubernetes), Multipass (developer VMs), LXD (containers and VMs), Charmed Kubeflow (ML on Kubernetes), and Ubuntu Core (embedded and IoT). Roughly 1,200 employees work across 75+ countries. Revenue is disclosed indirectly through UK Companies House filings; the company was operating at nine-figure revenue with sustained profitability by the mid-2020s. Mark Shuttleworth has repeatedly indicated preparation for an eventual public listing, and Canonical is often cited among the largest privately-held open-source vendors alongside Red Hat (pre-IBM), MongoDB (pre-IPO), and Elastic (pre-IPO).

Mission & values

Provide the world's best open-source infrastructure by making Ubuntu, and the wider open-source stack, secure, reliable, and easy to operate at any scale from a single laptop to a public cloud.

Qualifications

Canonical hires across engineering (Linux kernel, distributed systems, cloud, security, embedded, ML infrastructure, web), product, design, developer relations, sales, sales engineering, customer success, marketing, and G&A. Application flow lives at canonical.com/careers. Every role is fully remote from anywhere Canonical operates, with the only regular in-person expectation being twice-yearly week-long team gatherings (called "sprints") in a rotating global city. There is no mandatory office for any level, including senior leadership. The hiring process is unusually rigorous by industry standards: multi-stage written assessments, secondary-school and university-level academic records requested even from senior candidates, personality-inventory questionnaires, and a full interview loop. Timeline from application to offer typically runs 6 to 10 weeks. This process is well-known and sometimes controversial; applicants should expect it and plan accordingly.

Leadership

M

Mark Shuttleworth

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Founded Canonical in 2004 and has remained CEO throughout (with a brief step-back as CEO in the 2010s, resuming the role in 2017). Previously founded Thawte, sold to VeriSign in 1999. Second self-funded space tourist in 2002 aboard Soyuz TM-34.

A

Alex Chalkias

Head of Product

Leads product strategy across the Ubuntu ecosystem.

A

Ariel Simulevski

Chief Financial Officer

Leads finance and business operations at the pre-listing scale.

Hiring process

  1. 1

    Apply at canonical.com/careers

    Browse open roles and submit through the Canonical careers portal. Applications require detailed academic records including secondary-school grades.

  2. 2

    Written assessments

    Multiple written stages: personality inventory, cognitive assessments, and role-specific written questions. Timed and completed asynchronously.

    About 14 days

  3. 3

    Recruiter and hiring manager interviews

    Recruiter screen followed by a hiring manager conversation covering fit, remote effectiveness, and role-specific depth.

    About 14 days

  4. 4

    Panel interviews

    Multiple cross-functional interviews with peers and adjacent leaders. Engineering candidates typically face technical panels on Linux internals or the role's domain.

    About 14 days

  5. 5

    Final interview with senior leadership and offer

    Final round frequently includes Mark Shuttleworth or a direct report. Offers include base plus performance bonus; equity structure not disclosed publicly.

    About 14 days

Funding

StageBootstrapped
Investors
Self-funded by Mark Shuttleworth (Thawte exit proceeds)

Awards & recognition

  • Ubuntu becomes the most-deployed Linux on public clouds · 2020

    Canonical

  • Twenty years of Canonical and Ubuntu · 2024

    Canonical

  • One of the largest fully-remote private software companies globally · 2026

    Industry

Company information

Frequently asked questions

Is Canonical really fully remote?
Yes, and has been since founding in 2004. There is no mandatory office at any level. The only regular in-person expectation is a twice-yearly week-long team gathering in a rotating city.
Who founded Canonical?
Mark Shuttleworth in 2004, self-funded from his exit from Thawte. He remains CEO. Canonical has never taken venture capital.
How many countries does Canonical hire from?
The workforce spans 75+ countries. Each open role publishes the specific countries eligible based on Canonical's legal entities and Employer of Record relationships.
Is the hiring process really that intense?
Yes. Expect multi-stage written assessments, secondary-school and university academic records requested even from senior candidates, personality inventories, and multiple interview panels. Timeline from application to offer runs 6 to 10 weeks.
Does Canonical pay competitively?
Bands are moderate compared to peer VC-backed open-source vendors and are location-adjusted per country. Total comp reflects the bootstrapped, non-VC compensation philosophy and Canonical's geographic-arbitrage hiring model.
Is Canonical going public?
Mark Shuttleworth has repeatedly signaled preparation for an eventual public listing. As of 2026 no specific date has been announced.
What products does Canonical sell?
Primarily Ubuntu Pro (paid extended-support subscriptions), MAAS (bare-metal provisioning), Landscape (fleet management), and paid support around the wider open-source stack (Kubernetes, OpenStack, Kubeflow, Snap, LXD).

Stay in the loop.

One email per week, 5 hand-picked roles.