Life at Canonical: Amy Song shares her experience as a new joiner in Customer Success

As Canonical continues to grow, we have developed a unique onboarding process that enables our new hires to quickly settle and establish themselves in our globally distributed environment. 

During your first few weeks your manager will create an onboarding plan to introduce you to the business, your closest stakeholders and colleagues. You will also learn about our business tools and processes that allow us to work asynchronously across the globe. You can expect to develop a good understanding of the open source technologies that we develop such as our distributions for Openstack, Kubernetes, Kubeflow and Opensearch, in addition to Ubuntu, the world’s favorite Linux.  

Regardless of your level or role, you will be invited to attend a 3 day induction sprint during your first few months. These are held in exciting locations around the world and fully funded by Canonical. You will attend a series of presentation style talks delivered by senior leaders on their functions and vision to help you understand how everything at Canonical fits together. It is a great way to gain a holistic understanding of the whole business. You will also get to engage in some fun team building activities whilst getting to know other new joiners from across the business. 

In this series, we will be interviewing team members who joined the company within the last year to ask them about their experience so far. For this edition, we will be hearing from Amy Song. 

Meet Amy

In February 2024, Amy joined Canonical as part of the Customer Success team. Based in Toronto, Amy engages customers across Canada and the U.S to guide them to a deeper understanding of Canonical’s products and services, as well as best practices. Customer Success Managers collaborate closely with Sales, Support, Product and other teams to improve the customer experience, driving retention and growth. CSMs also serve as the voice of the customer within Canonical, sharing customer feedback, including suggestions or pain points with the relevant stakeholders to drive positive change.

How would you describe your first few months at Canonical?

My first few months at Canonical were exciting and inspiring, with a sprinkle of intensity as I adapted to the new role. From the start, my team was incredibly supportive (special thanks to Arianna, my onboarding buddy, for her guidance). I had the chance to collaborate with colleagues from various teams, all of whom were approachable, responsive, and generous in sharing their expertise.

Working with people across multiple countries and time zones was new to me but it was an element I thoroughly enjoyed. I also traveled for work for the first time, attending two sprints in Madrid, which was fantastic and fun, yet productive and intense. 

What stands out to me at Canonical is the opportunity to continuously learn, grow, and contribute to meaningful projects. My experiences so far with the CSM team, which falls under Marketing, as well as with Support, Product, Engineering, and Sales, have shown me that feedback from all levels of experience is genuinely valued here.

What was the induction sprint like? 

The induction sprint was a blast. I met my manager, other leaders, and fellow new joiners in person, and there was something special about the conversations which took place over  walks, dinners and networking. I gained a much better understanding of Canonical’s overall culture as well as the marketing team’s culture, which is really fantastic!

What aspect of your role excites you the most? 

What excites me most about my role is that I get to foster relationships with different types of customers across many industries. I also appreciate the creative freedom to engage customers in different ways and the chance to support our team on projects related to data and analytics.

Is this your first remote job? How do you feel about remote work?

I’ve worked in fully remote, fully on-site and in hybrid roles and I absolutely love the flexibility of remote work, though it does require us to be more proactive and intentional with communication.

Traveling to sprints has been like the cherry on top of the remote work experience. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Madrid twice this year and I’m also super excited about the upcoming sprint to Cape Town in January!

What do you advise readers considering a career at Canonical?

If you’re thinking about a career at Canonical, don’t hesitate—apply! You’ll thrive if you enjoy working with thoughtful, smart, and passionate colleagues. Canonical is the perfect place for you if you like open source technologies, enjoy remote work, and are eager to learn and grow! 

Join the team 

Canonical puts a great effort on employee onboarding to ensure new joiners like Amy feel welcome and engaged. In the next article of this series, we’ll explore another story of a new joiner. In the meantime, we encourage you to browse current openings, find the most interesting role for you and apply. Canonical’s team will make sure you receive all that you need to excel at your new role!