Site Reliability Engineering Manager

As a Site Reliability Engineering Manager at Canonical, your key responsibilities will include leading a high-performance team of operations engineers, managing customer service operations, ensuring the delivery of quality managed services, and representing the IS team to stakeholders. You'll also be involved in mentoring your team members, implementing structured engineering processes, and maintaining a focus on service level agreements. This multifaceted role allows you to blend management with hands-on technical leadership, making a significant impact on both operations and product improvements.

To succeed as a Site Reliability Engineering Manager at Canonical, you'll need proven experience managing DevOps teams, particularly in SaaS or similar offerings. Familiarity with infrastructure as code practices, cloud technologies, and complex distributed systems is essential. Additionally, candidates should have a strong academic background, technical aptitude, and a track record for exceeding expectations. Experience with agile methodologies and Ubuntu system administration can also enhance your application.

Canonical is committed to the professional development of its employees, offering a generous personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year. As a Site Reliability Engineering Manager, you’ll be encouraged to pursue various learning opportunities to enhance your technical skills and leadership capabilities. Canonical promotes a culture of continuous learning, ensuring that you stay at the forefront of the open-source and technology landscape.

The work culture at Canonical is rooted in flexibility, collaboration, and innovation. As a distributed company with team members worldwide, you’ll have the freedom to work from home while still engaging in twice-yearly team sprints with colleagues. The focus is on results and enabling a supportive environment where diverse perspectives empower decision-making and creativity. Canonical values inclusivity and strives to create a workplace where every employee can thrive.

In the role of Site Reliability Engineering Manager at Canonical, you will engage with a variety of cutting-edge technologies across the full stack. This includes working with Kubernetes for container orchestration, Linux for server management, and various cloud infrastructure services. You will also be involved in innovating within DevOps practices, exploring new tools and methods to enhance automation, and contributing to improvements that benefit the wider open-source community.

When answering this question, it's essential to highlight specific instances where you have successfully led DevOps teams. Discuss how you ensured effective communication, promoted collaboration, and implemented agile methodologies. Share specific metrics or outcomes that demonstrate your success as a leader, emphasizing your ability to mentor team members and drive operational excellence.

For this question, outline your approach to enhancing service reliability through proactive monitoring, incident response plans, and continuous improvement processes. Provide examples of how you've implemented prior strategies in past roles and the metrics used to measure success, such as uptime and customer satisfaction. Focus on your analytical skills and your ability to learn from incidents to prevent future occurrences.

When addressing conflict resolution, emphasize your communication skills and the importance of fostering an open environment where team members feel safe to express their viewpoints. Describe how you facilitate discussions that lead to positive outcomes and ensure that all voices are heard, while remaining focused on team objectives. Provide a specific example of a resolution you facilitated to showcase your interpersonal skills.

Your answer should reflect a commitment to professional development through hands-on mentoring. Share examples of how you've helped junior engineers grow their skills, whether through regular one-on-one meetings, providing constructive feedback, or facilitating learning opportunities. Highlight the importance of creating personalized development plans that align with their career aspirations while contributing to team goals.

When discussing your experience with infrastructure as code, provide specific examples of how you have implemented it in previous roles. Talk about the tools you have used, such as Terraform or Ansible, and focus on the benefits it brought to your team in terms of reliability, scalability, and repeatability. Make sure to mention any challenges you faced and how you overcame them to improve the process.

Explain your strategies for staying informed about industry trends, such as following influential tech blogs, participating in webinars, or engaging with professional communities. Mention attending conferences or pursuing relevant certifications. Highlight how you leverage this knowledge to drive innovation and improve processes within your team, demonstrating your passion for continuous learning and growth.

Describe your methodology for tracking team performance, such as setting clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), conducting regular check-ins, and utilizing performance reviews. Explain how you balance quantitative metrics with qualitative feedback to create a holistic view of team health. Discuss any tools or frameworks you've used and how they have informed your team development strategies.

When answering this question, select a project that demonstrates your leadership skills and the impact of your contributions. Start by describing the project’s goals, your role, and the team dynamics. Focus on the key steps you took to achieve success—highlight decision-making, collaboration, and overcoming challenges. Conclude with the measurable outcomes that resulted from your leadership.

Explain your approach to prioritization by discussing how you assess urgency versus importance in tasks. Provide insights into the frameworks or tools you use to identify priorities, such as Kanban boards or project management software. Emphasize your ability to adjust priorities dynamically based on stakeholder feedback and operational needs, illustrating your adaptability as a leader.

Reflect on the current industry landscape when addressing this question. Discuss challenges such as balancing speed with reliability, managing distributed systems, or keeping pace with evolving technologies. Share your insight on developing solutions to these challenges, including fostering a culture of shared responsibility, investing in automated systems, and staying agile to respond to customer needs.