Head of Talent Development

Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets. 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. The company is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1200+ colleagues in 75+ countries and very few office-based roles. Teams meet two to four times yearly in person, in interesting locations around the world, to align on strategy and execution.

The company is founder-led, profitable, and growing.

We are building a Talent Development function that is future-focused and driven to define the future of the workplace, within a global, growing open source software company, pioneers in remote-first collaboration and employment. This is an opportunity for a person with outstanding leadership, organisation, and intellect, to build our Talent Development team to enhance our leadership and people management practices in our remote setting.

This role is the fourth remaining Lead role in our People function, which is a cross-disciplinary group of organisational psychologists, engineers, statistics/analytics experts, talent science, and employee relations specialists. We are recruiting globally, and believe we are bringing in outstanding new colleagues in a way that is fearlessly global.

• Define and implement an inspiring and comprehensive talent development program.
• Develop, drive and embed effective programs of management and leadership development within our remote organisation.
• Design and deliver core training programs, partnering with specialist vendors where appropriate.
• Create and implement leadership performance indicators and metrics.
• Own our leadership skills matrix for performance management, talent assessment, succession planning, mentorship, virtual learning, and career development.
• Set up a global learning framework for training and career fulfillment.
• Build and manage a new team of Talent Development specialists.
• Take a data-focused lens to understand trends to strategise and define career development frameworks.
• Own and enhance the impact of the learning budget.

• An exceptional academic track record from High school and beyond.
• Possess insight and experience on what makes people successful in a globally remote tech company at the management level.
• Demonstrated experience with strong insight and perspective on the key conditions and practices that create high performing teams.
• Ability to create, lead and execute strategy, and drive change across a company.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to balance strategy with execution.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, for data-driven decision making with particular experience in measurement of the impact of development programmes.
• Experience in people management and being accountable for a budget.
• Willingness to travel up to 4 times a year for internal events.

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.
• Annual compensation review.
• Recognition rewards.
• Annual holiday leave.
• Maternity and paternity leave.
• Employee Assistance Program & Wellness Platform.
• Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues.
• Priority Pass and travel upgrades for long-haul company events.

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. As the company that publishes Ubuntu, one of the most important open-source projects and the platform for AI, IoT, and the cloud, we are changing the world of software. We recruit on a global basis and set a very high standard for people joining the company. We expect excellence; in order to succeed, we need to be the best at what we do.

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.