Principal Software Engineer, macOS/Linux Agents

Airlock Digital•California, United States, CA

3d•Remote

About The Position

Airlock Digital is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to help shape the next generation of its macOS and Linux endpoint technology. This is a senior individual-contributor role with broad technical influence. The engineer will set direction through architecture and design work, translate product and customer needs into practical engineering plans, and contribute directly by implementing features, reviewing code, and resolving complex defects. The macOS/Linux Agent involves operating-system event monitoring and enforcement, privileged services, local policy and data management, secure communications, installation and update workflows, and platform-specific user experiences. The role requires strong macOS and Linux systems judgment, the ability to build alignment around technical decisions, and to help other engineers solve difficult problems. Collaboration will occur across engineering, product, QA, security, support, and cloud teams to improve product quality and customer outcomes.

Requirements

8-12+ years of professional software engineering experience, including significant experience building production systems software in one or more managed languages, with strong knowledge of concurrency, resource management, runtime behavior, error handling, performance, reliability, and low-level debugging.
Strong systems-engineering experience across macOS and Linux, with deep expertise in at least one platform and demonstrated ability to design, debug, and deliver effectively on the other.
A record of designing, shipping, and sustaining security-critical endpoint software, privileged Agents, operating-system services, or another always-on product where correctness, stability, performance, and safe failure behavior are essential.
Strong knowledge of Unix-like operating systems, including processes and signals, permissions, filesystems, services, inter-process communication, package management, and privileged execution.
Experience integrating managed-language software with native operating-system APIs and building concurrent, event-driven software that must make reliable, time-sensitive decisions.
Sound security judgment around code and publisher trust, cryptographic hashing, TLS and certificates, authentication and authorization, sensitive local data, secure IPC, persistence, and software updates.
Proven technical leadership in a mature software product, including architecture and design decisions, resolving ambiguous tradeoffs, building alignment across teams, mentoring engineers, and influencing outcomes without relying on managerial authority.
A bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering or related field is preferred but not required; equivalent practical experience is welcomed.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience with Apple’s Endpoint Security framework, process-execution authorization events, Full Disk Access, system extensions, entitlements, code signing, or other macOS endpoint-security capabilities.
Direct experience with Linux fanotify, /proc, filesystem mounts and namespaces, process inspection, permission events, or comparable Linux enforcement and monitoring mechanisms.
Proficiency with C, Objective-C, Swift, or mixed-language applications that cross managed and native platform boundaries.
Experience with macOS application and installer packaging, Xcode projects, launchd, Developer ID signing, notarization, entitlements, and secure application updates.
Experience supporting Linux services and software delivery through systemd, SysV or Upstart, RPM and DEB packages, rpm/dpkg databases, SELinux policy, or related packaging tools.

Responsibilities

Set and communicate the technical direction for Airlock Digital’s macOS and Linux Agents.
Translate product and customer needs into sound designs, architectural decisions, and executable engineering plans.
Contribute directly to the shared managed-language codebase and platform-specific components by implementing features, reviewing code, and resolving high-priority defects.
Lead design, architecture, and code reviews.
Build alignment around the boundaries between shared Agent capabilities and operating-system-specific integrations while maintaining security, reliability, performance, and maintainability.
Own technical outcomes for application-control enforcement and Agent lifecycle behavior across supported macOS releases and Linux distributions, including event monitoring, policy evaluation, trusted software handling, installation, updates, recovery, and secure communications.
Diagnose difficult production issues involving privileged services, concurrency, resource usage, filesystems, process execution, operating-system security controls, package formats, and processor architectures.
Raise the engineering bar through technical mentorship, knowledge sharing, automated testing, observability, and improvements to build, release, and diagnostic capabilities.
Partner with product, QA, security, support, and cloud engineering to manage technical risk and coordinate delivery.