Sr. Software Engineer, Linux Kernel

xAI•Seattle, WA

21h

About The Position

At SpaceXSI, the Platform Core team designs, builds, and operates large AI supercomputers. This role is responsible for the lowest layers of the software stack on the devices that power the supercomputer. The software interfaces directly with the core hardware and network fabric, exposing the hardware’s capabilities to the rest of the stack while maintaining a small, robust footprint. The engineer will build and maintain a lean, reliable Linux-based operating system, develop high-performance device drivers, and support the platform in production. The role also collaborates with hardware teams and external partners to design new supercomputer hardware and bring up the operating system and software stack on it.

Requirements

At least 5 years of hands-on systems programming experience in C or C++.
Strong operating systems fundamentals, including scheduling, memory management, and I/O; ability to explain how a computer works from hardware through high-level applications.
Understanding of computer networking in the host operating-system stack and common network devices such as switches and routers.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Deep knowledge of the Linux kernel and its networking stack; experience with another production-grade kernel is transferable.
Proficiency with debugging tools across kernel, network, and userspace, such as ftrace, perf, Wireshark/tcpdump, eBPF, and gdb.
Experience bringing up new hardware from scratch, such as flashing bare-metal software on a microcontroller with JTAG or bootstrapping a Linux kernel and root filesystem on new hardware.
Demonstrated experience developing and optimizing device or peripheral drivers.
Understanding of peripheral hardware interface standards such as Ethernet, PCIe, I2C, and SPI.
Experience with product security, operating-system and system hardening, and secure boot schemes.

Nice To Haves

Device or peripheral driver experience with high-speed interfaces or advanced considerations such as DMA and cache coherency.
Ability to critically review schematics and debug hardware interfaces if needed.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain the lean, high-reliability Linux-based operating system that underpins the supercomputer network fabric.
Write or rewrite high-performance device drivers to extract the maximum physical capability from network and compute hardware.
Manage deployment, operation, and debugging of the platform in production.
Rigorously resolve and root-cause anomalies to continually improve system reliability.
Develop and continually improve observability and configuration-management tools.
Collaborate with hardware teams and external partners to design next-generation supercomputer hardware and bring up the operating system and software stack on it.