---
title: "Building Ubuntu: Engineering Post at Canonical"
date: 2009-09-02T13:30:13Z
modified: 2009-09-02T13:30:13Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/building-ubuntu-engineering-post-at-canonical/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 2176
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2009-09-02T13:30:13Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

![](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/Artwork/OfficialHardy?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=usplash.resized.png)

First off I should say Ubuntu is a client. With the economy the way it is I don’t need to apologise for posting a job. Especially when its working at a great company.

[Ubuntu Server Engineering Manager at Canonical](http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=741506&svfId=225617&goback=.mml_inbox_none_DATE_1)

I can think of a few people might be interested. What’s good about the Ubuntu OS? Well its core goal is to be the most _usable_ Linux. Good goal. My partner in crime [Stephen](http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/) was an Ubuntu user and evangelist way before the firm was a client precisely because of the user experience. Indeed I reckon Stephen has done as much as anyone to document Ubuntu on Thinkpad.

But now Ubuntu is doubling down on the enterprisey stuff, cloud and virtualisation and so on. Perhaps most interestingly Canonical is taking a leaf out of metronomic IBM mainframe product delivery- with a regular six month cycle…. “this is what you’ll get. This is what we delivered, this is what you’ll get, and so on.”

That’s a hell of a job to take on. Got rhythm? You’ll need it for the job.

What is the best thing about Canonical though? The people. Stone cold awesome. In the last few months they hired duck fancier [Simon Wardley](http://blog.gardeviance.org/) and management maven [John Willis](http://www.johnmwillis.com/), who records the [IT management podcast](http://www.redmonk.com/cote/it-management-podcast/) with our very own [Coté](../../../cote/ "People Over Process"). The people first culture comes from the top down- Mark Shuttleworth may bang on about space travel rather a lot, but his goals are all about getting stuff done down here.

Another old friend at Canonical is Ken Drachnik, ex-Sun. Talking of Sun- one of the reasons to write this post is that I know a lot of people from the firm read this blog. Hey – might be worth giving Canonical a call. The culture is as far from Oracle as you can get.