---
title: 'General Counsel at Canonical'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/general-counsel-canonical-home-based-emea-office-based-london-united-kingdom-dmef8jpbhbec'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-25'
---

# General Counsel at Canonical

- **Company:** Canonical
- **Location:** Home Based / Emea / Office Based / London, United Kingdom
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-09-24
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-25
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/canonical/jobs/8207840

## Job description

We are hiring a General Counsel, reporting to the Chief Operating Officer (COO). This role leads Canonical’s global Legal and Compliance function.

This is a unique opportunity for an exceptional and commercially-minded senior lawyer to lead the legal and compliance function of a profitable, fast-growing technology company that is privately held with the intention to list on a public exchange. We’re looking for someone with genuine fluency in the software industry and in open source dynamics, who can translate that insight into clear positions on licensing, commercial contracts and risk, and hands-on execution.

Reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer, you will own Canonical's legal, regulatory and governance posture and lead a distributed team across EMEA and the Americas. Your primary challenge will be to continue building both the team and the architecture: a management layer across two regions, and the governance, contracting and controls a public company needs, in an environment that regularly does things the industry has not done before. You will work closely with our product and engineering teams on licensing and IP questions, with the security function on customer assurance, and you will advise the Board and its committees directly.

In our selection process, we prioritize intellect and judgement alongside depth of practice. We are looking for someone with a strong academic background, an active licence to practice, and demonstrable exposure to a multilayered global operational environment.

Location: This role will be based remotely in EMEA time zones, with an option to be office based in London, UK.

## The role entails

- Leading the global Legal and Compliance function: setting it's structure, standards and priorities across EMEA and the Americas.
- Building and managing a management capability: hire and develop managers, set objectives, review performance against a clear bar, and address under-performance directly.
- Setting the operating cadence of the function: intake and prioritization of legal work, service expectations with internal clients, and reporting on workload and risk to the leadership team.
- Owning public-market readiness on the legal side: corporate governance, group and entity structure, delegated authority, policies, disclosure controls and records, in partnership with Finance.
- Advising the CEO, COO, CFO and the Board, and supporting in Board and committee meetings.
- Owning the commercial contracting framework: standard templates, negotiating positions, and a deviation and escalation process that makes commitments visible before they are signed.
- Leading intellectual property and open source licensing strategy, including copyleft, trademark and the terms on which Ubuntu and our products are distributed.
- Owning the global compliance programme: data protection and privacy, export controls and trade compliance, anti-bribery and corruption, competition and AI regulation.
- Managing litigation, disputes and regulatory engagement, together with the external counsel panel, its budget and its quality.
- Advising on M&A, partnerships, strategic alliances and financing as the company grows.

## What we are looking for in you

- An exceptional academic track record from both high school and university.
- A degree in law, or equivalent, and an active licence to practice in an EMEA or Americas jurisdiction.
- Substantial senior in-house experience in a global technology or software business.
- Proven experience leading a distributed legal team, including managing managers across regions and time zones.
- A track record of setting and holding a high performance bar: hiring well, developing people, and dealing with under performance directly rather than waiting it out.
- Experience building or restructuring an in-house legal function, including deciding what is retained, delegated and sent to external counsel.
- Technology related experience of:
- negotiating and owning commercial technology contracts, including enterprise software and subscriptions, channel and reseller agreements, hardware manufacturer agreements, cloud and services
- advising on open source licensing, including permissive and copyleft licences, and familiarity with how open source communities operate.
- Experience of, or demonstrable readiness for, public company governance: listing preparation, board and committee support, disclosure and controls.
- Depth in at least two of: data protection and privacy, IP and trademark, export controls and trade, competition, or disputes.
- Confidence to respectfully speak up, exchange feedback, hold colleagues accountable, and share ideas without hesitation.
- Professional written and spoken English with excellent drafting and presentation skills.
- Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, and accountability.
- International travel two to four times a year for company events up to two weeks long.

Nice-to-have skills

- Experience taking a company through an IPO, or practicing as counsel inside a listed company.
- A technical or engineering background, or fluency in how software is built and shipped.
- Experience of a subscription or recurring-revenue business model.
- Experience building or restructuring an in-house legal function.
- A qualification in more than one jurisdiction.

## What we offer colleagues

We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We revisit compensation annually (and more often for graduates and associates) to ensure we recognize outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus or commission. We provide all team members with additional benefits which reflect our values and ideals. We balance our programs to meet local needs and ensure fairness globally.

- Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person.
- Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year.
- Bi-annual compensation review.
- Company recognition rewards.
- 40 days annual leave per annum, including public holidays and our All Company holiday periods.
- Maternity and paternity leave.
- Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform.
- Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues, with Priority Pass for lounge access.

## About Canonical

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. Our platform, Ubuntu, is very widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation, and IoT. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors. We are founder-led, profitable, and growing.

Powered by worldwide distributed collaboration since our inception in 2004, we believe tech and business leadership can emerge anywhere. We have no central headquarters. Most of us work from home, but we are exceptionally disciplined about this. We have very high expectations of all colleagues, and are champions of excellence. Working here is a step into the future and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game.

Canonical is an equal opportunity employer

We are proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and background create a better work environment and better products.[Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.](https://canonical.com/careers/diversity/identity)

## About Canonical

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Canonical publishes Ubuntu and delivers trusted open source software, security, and support to enterprises worldwide.
- **Entity Type**: Private (founder-funded, bootstrapped)
- **Headquarters**: Not publicly available in provided sources (commonly reported as London, UK)
- **Founded**: 2004
- **Founders**: Mark Shuttleworth

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Enterprise open source software, cloud infrastructure, and security.
- Target customers: B2B – enterprises, cloud providers, developers, and government organizations.
- Mission statement: "We amplify the impact of open source" – helping people and organizations tap into the power of open source to develop new products with speed and confidence.

## Products & Services
- **Ubuntu**: The world’s most popular Linux distribution for desktops, servers, and IoT.
- **Ubuntu Pro**: A single subscription providing security maintenance, compliance features, and support for the entire open source portfolio.
- **OpenStack**: Canonical’s distribution of the open source cloud platform for private and hybrid clouds.
- **Kubernetes (MicroK8s, Charmed Kubernetes)**: Lightweight and production-grade Kubernetes solutions.
- **Landscape**: Systems management and compliance tool for Ubuntu deployments.
- **LXD**: System container manager for running full Linux systems in containers.
- **Netplan**: Network configuration utility for Linux.
- **Vanilla Framework**: Open source CSS framework developed by Canonical’s web and design teams.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding – not applicable (bootstrapped). Annual revenue – not publicly available.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Founder Mark Shuttleworth is the primary investor. Partners include major cloud providers and hardware vendors (not explicitly listed in provided sources).
- **Growth Signals**: Scaled engineering headcount from 600 to 950 engineers (per blog post). Remote-first since inception in 2004. Over 80 nationalities represented.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Ubuntu ecosystem**: De facto standard for cloud and developer environments.
- **Remote-first culture**: Fully distributed since 2004, attracting global talent.
- **Open source leadership**: Deep involvement in communities (OpenStack, Kubernetes, etc.) and strong brand trust.
- **End-to-end portfolio**: From OS to applications, with consistent security maintenance for up to 15 years.
- **Rigorous hiring**: Manual, human-reviewed process that prioritizes culture fit and potential.

## Strategic Focus
- Expand enterprise adoption of Ubuntu Pro and managed open source services.
- Maintain leadership in cloud, container, and edge computing.
- Strengthen security and compliance offerings for regulated industries.
- Continue investing in open source communities and upstream projects.

## Why Work Here
- **Remote-first**: Truly distributed company with no central office; team members work from anywhere.
- **Culture**: Values of reliability, accessibility, precision, and adroitness. Emphasis on collaboration and open source ethos.
- **Small teams, big impact**: Engineering organized into nimble squads (950 engineers across ~50 teams) prioritizing agility and deep expertise.
- **Diversity**: Team from over 80 nationalities; equal opportunity employer.
- **Career progression**: Focus on impact and potential over rigid experience thresholds; opportunities to shift roles if a better fit is found.
- **Perks**: Personal development budget, learning opportunities, and a global, inclusive environment.

## Sources
1. [canonical.com/careers](https://canonical.com/careers)
2. [canonical.com/company](https://canonical.com/company)
3. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/canonical](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/canonical)
4. [canonical.com/blog/hiring-the-canonical-way](https://canonical.com/blog/hiring-the-canonical-way)

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