Senior OS Engineer — Linux Security & Container Supply Chain

RapidFort, Inc.

10d•$150,000 - $200,000

About The Position

RapidFort is looking for a deeply technical Senior OS Engineer to design, build, and maintain secure Linux-based operating system components that power hardened container images and cloud-native workloads. This role sits at the intersection of Linux systems engineering, package management, and software supply chain security. You will be responsible for identifying vulnerabilities in OS packages, validating fixes, rebuilding or patching components, and ensuring secure, production-grade container images are delivered at scale. You will work across multiple Linux distributions to curate, harden, and continuously improve the operating system layers used in containerized environments. This includes package-level remediation, dependency resolution, and automation of secure build pipelines. This is a hands-on engineering role focused on Linux internals, OS packaging, and container image security — not just vulnerability scanning or policy enforcement.

Requirements

5+ years in Linux systems engineering, OS engineering, platform engineering, DevSecOps, or release engineering
Deep expertise in Linux operating systems and distributions (Debian, RHEL, Ubuntu, Alpine)
Strong experience with OS package management systems (apt, rpm, dnf, apk)
Hands-on experience patching, rebuilding, or maintaining OS packages
Strong understanding of Linux internals (processes, memory, filesystem, system libraries)
Experience working with system-level libraries and dependencies (glibc, openssl, etc.)
Deep knowledge of dependency resolution, ABI compatibility, and package lifecycle management
Experience with container internals and Linux runtime behavior
Experience remediating CVEs in OS packages and container environments
Understanding of SBOMs, software provenance, signing, and artifact trust models
Familiarity with supply chain security frameworks (e.g., SLSA, reproducible builds)
Strong scripting/programming ability in Python, Bash, Go, or C/C++
Experience building CI/CD pipelines for OS or system-level build processes
Strong debugging skills across Linux systems and build environments

Nice To Haves

Experience contributing to or maintaining Linux distributions or open-source OS projects
Experience building minimal, distroless, or hardened container images
Familiarity with package build infrastructure (Koji, OBS, Launchpad, mock, etc.)
Experience with kernel hardening or low-level OS security modules
Knowledge of large-scale container security platforms
Contributions to open-source security, Linux, or container ecosystems

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end CVE remediation across Linux OS packages and system libraries
Analyze vulnerabilities affecting core OS components (glibc, openssl, kernel modules, runtime libraries, etc.)
Validate upstream fixes and determine patching or backporting strategies
Rebuild, patch, and curate OS packages across multiple Linux distributions (Debian, RHEL, Alpine, etc.)
Build and maintain secure, minimal, production-ready container images
Remove unnecessary packages and reduce image attack surface
Ensure OS-level changes propagate safely into container environments
Validate image integrity, compatibility, and runtime stability
Generate and maintain SBOMs for OS packages and container images
Implement provenance, signing, and artifact trust mechanisms
Ensure reproducible and verifiable builds across OS components
Strengthen software supply chain security across all image pipelines
Design and scale automated pipelines for OS patching, package rebuilding, and image generation
Integrate CVE scanning, remediation, and validation into CI/CD workflows
Build tooling for OS-level dependency tracking and vulnerability analysis
Improve build efficiency, reliability, and reproducibility
Partner with platform, DevOps, infrastructure, and security teams
Work closely with engineering teams to integrate secure OS layers into product pipelines
Support production environments with stable, secure OS baselines