Senior Systems Software Engineer, Base OS - Kernel

NVIDIA•Us, CA

20h

About The Position

NVIDIA's invention of the GPU in 1999 fueled the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined modern computer graphics, and revolutionized parallel computing. More recently, GPU deep learning ignited modern AI — the next era of computing — with the GPU acting as the brain of computers, robots, and self-driving cars that can perceive and understand the world. Today, we are increasingly known as "the AI computing company". We're looking to grow our company and build our teams with the most resourceful people in the world. Join us at the forefront of technological advancement. What you'll be doing: Architect and Enable: Drive the enablement of the NVIDIA Vera Superchip for enterprise customers, ensuring the Base OS, which is derived from Ubuntu and ships on DGX systems, is optimized for the next generation of AI and HPC platforms. Tier-1 Partner Collaboration: Act as a primary technical point of contact for Tier-1 customers, working directly with their engineering teams to enable and optimize their internal Linux distributions on NVIDIA hardware. Hyperscale Problem Solving: Solve complex kernel challenges unique to massive-scale deployments, including high core counts, multi-terabyte memory footprints, and multi-rack system interconnects with NVIDIA specific architectures.. Hardware Bring-up: Partner with Hardware and Firmware teams to lead the bring-up of new platforms, from Pre-Silicon simulation to OS boot and production stability. Automated Engineering: Design and implement fully automated test suites to validate kernel stability and performance, ensuring that "quality" is a built-in feature of our development lifecycle. Long-range Planning: Look beyond the immediate result to anticipate future architectural challenges, ensuring our solutions are scalable and maintainable for years to come. What we need to see: BS/MS in Computer Science, EE, or equivalent experience. We are seeking candidates with 8+ years of professional experience in Linux kernel development or low-level systems. NVIDIA is widely considered to be one of the technology world's most desirable employers. We have some of the most forward-thinking and hardworking people on the planet working for us. If you're creative, autonomous, and ready to shape the future of AI infrastructure, we want to hear from you! NVIDIA is leading the way in groundbreaking developments in Artificial Intelligence, High-Performance Computing, and Visualization. Our invention serves as the visual cortex of modern computers and is at the heart of our products and services. Our work opens up new universes to explore, enables amazing creativity and discovery, and powers what were once science fiction inventions from artificial intelligence to autonomous cars. NVIDIA is seeking exceptional individuals like you to help us drive the next wave of artificial intelligence. Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 184,000 USD - 287,500 USD for Level 4, and 224,000 USD - 356,500 USD for Level 5. You will also be eligible for equity and benefits . Applications for this job will be accepted at least until February 28, 2026. This posting is for an existing vacancy. NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes. NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Requirements

BS/MS in Computer Science, EE, or equivalent experience.
We are seeking candidates with 8+ years of professional experience in Linux kernel development or low-level systems.
Systems Mastery: Expert-level C programming skills with a deep understanding of concurrency, locking primitives, and synchronization in large-scale NUMA systems.
Subsystem Expertise: Strong knowledge of core OS concepts: memory management (MMU/IOMMU), interrupt handling, and process scheduling at scale.
Collaborative Attitude: A "team-first" approach to engineering. We value collective success over individual "lone wolf" heroics and expect active participation in design reviews and mentorship.
Critical Thinking: The ability to balance immediate delivery with long-term technical debt management and architectural vision.

Nice To Haves

Scale Experience: Proven track record of debugging and resolving kernel issues in large-cluster environments or systems with high processor density.
Community Presence: You are an active contributor to the Linux Kernel (LKML) or other major open-source projects.
Automation First: Experience developing CI/CD pipelines or fully automated validation frameworks for low-level system software.
Protocol & Architecture: Deep background in PCIe Gen5/6, CXL, and ARM64 (v8/v9) privilege levels and memory models.
Virtualization: Expertise in virtualization stacks (KVM/QEMU) and I/O virtualization (SR-IOV, SMMU).

Responsibilities

Drive the enablement of the NVIDIA Vera Superchip for enterprise customers, ensuring the Base OS, which is derived from Ubuntu and ships on DGX systems, is optimized for the next generation of AI and HPC platforms.
Act as a primary technical point of contact for Tier-1 customers, working directly with their engineering teams to enable and optimize their internal Linux distributions on NVIDIA hardware.
Solve complex kernel challenges unique to massive-scale deployments, including high core counts, multi-terabyte memory footprints, and multi-rack system interconnects with NVIDIA specific architectures.
Partner with Hardware and Firmware teams to lead the bring-up of new platforms, from Pre-Silicon simulation to OS boot and production stability.
Design and implement fully automated test suites to validate kernel stability and performance, ensuring that "quality" is a built-in feature of our development lifecycle.
Look beyond the immediate result to anticipate future architectural challenges, ensuring our solutions are scalable and maintainable for years to come.