Senior Kernel / Systems Software Engineer

Talent Corner Hr Services; Pune District; On-site; INR 900,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Talent Corner Hr Services in Pune seeks a Senior Kernel / Systems Software Engineer to design and optimize core OS components, kernel drivers, and system software with 5–10 years of hands-on experience.

You will work across Windows and Linux, tackling latency and stability challenges while collaborating with QA, HW, and DevOps. Apply AI-assisted workflows and secure coding practices to deliver reliable, high-performance systems.

Qualifications

• Hands-on 5+ years in low-level systems programming in C/C++.
• Deep OS internals knowledge: memory, interrupts, concurrency.
• Experience with Linux or Windows kernel environments.
• Ability to work across cross-functional teams and document designs.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain high‑performance kernel modules and drivers.
• Optimize OS components for latency, memory, CPU, and throughput.
• Debug kernel panics, memory corruption, deadlocks, and hardware issues.
• Enforce secure coding in ring 0 environments.
• Lead architectural reviews and mentor engineers.
• Leverage AI tools to accelerate coding while ensuring checks.
• Collaborate with QA, Hardware, and DevOps for deployment and CI/CD.

Skills

C/C++ systems programming

Kernel development

OS internals

Cross-platform Linux/Windows

Kernel debugging

Git & CI/CD

AI tool integration

Education

Bachelor's/Master's in CS/CE

Tools

GDB

WinDbg

Valgrind

Git

Job description

Senior Kernel / Systems Software Engineer

Role: Senior Kernel / Systems Software Engineer

Location: Pune

Experience: 5 to 10 years

About the Role

We are seeking a seasoned Senior Kernel / Systems Software Engineer with 5-10 years of hands‑on experience in low-level systems programming. In this role, you will design, architect, and optimize core operating system components, kernel‑mode drivers, and system-level software. You will tackle complex challenges related to OS internals, hardware abstraction, and high‑performance concurrency.

Whether working on Windows or Linux environments, you will be responsible for ensuring ultra‑low latency, maximum stability, and tight resource utilization across multi‑threaded and multi‑processor systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Design & Architecture: Lead the design, implementation, and maintenance of high‑performance kernel modules, system services, and device drivers.
• OS Internals & Performance: Optimize core system components for latency, memory footprint, CPU utilization, and overall system throughput.
• Low‑Level Debugging: Troubleshoot complex low‑level issues, including kernel panics/bug checks, memory corruption, deadlocks, race conditions, and hardware‑software interaction faults.
• System Security & Stability: Enforce secure coding practices in ring 0 / privilege mode environments to prevent vulnerability exploits and system crashes.
• Technical Leadership: Participate in architectural reviews, establish coding standards, mentor junior engineers, and drive technical decision‑making across teams.
• AI‑Assisted Workflows: Leverage AI coding assistants and LLM tools to accelerate code generation, prototyping, and test scenario creation while maintaining rigorous manual verification.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Partner with QA, Hardware, and DevOps teams to streamline driver/module deployment, automated testing, and CI/CD pipelines.

Required Qualifications & Skills

• Education: Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electronics, or a related technical field.
• Core Systems Experience: 510 years of deep systems programming experience in C and C++ within low‑level software environments.
• OS Internals Expertise: Advanced, practical understanding of operating system concepts, including privilege levels (User Mode vs. Kernel Mode), Virtual Memory Management, Interrupt Handling, DMA, Synchronization Primitives, and Multithreading/Concurrency models.
• OS Agnostic / Cross‑Platform Exposure: Deep familiarity with OS API layers and kernel paradigms on Linux (POSIX, Syscalls) or Windows (Win32, Native API, WDF/KMDF), with the adaptability to work across both platforms.
• Advanced Debugging: Proven experience using kernel‑level debuggers and profiling tools (e.g., WinDbg, GDB, Valgrind, Trace32, Perf, or OS‑native crash dump analysis tools).
• Hardware Interfacing: Experience interfacing software directly with underlying hardware architecture (x86/x64, ARM, PCIe, Bus interfaces).
• Build & Version Control: Proficiency with Git, complex build systems (CMake, Makefiles, MSBuild), and CI/CD integration.
• AI Tool Integration:

Hands‑on experience using AI assistants (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude) to optimize workflows.

Strong capability to craft precise technical prompts and validate/fact‑check AI‑generated code for edge cases, security risks, and AI hallucinations.

• Soft Skills: Excellent problem‑solving skills, strong architectural thinking, and the ability to articulate complex technical concepts clearly to cross‑functional stakeholders.

Preferred Skills (Good to Have)

• Direct experience writing and certifying kernel‑mode device drivers (e.g., Windows Driver Frameworks [KMDF/UMDF] or Linux Kernel Modules [LKM]).
• Experience with hypervisors, virtualization technologies (KVM, Hyper‑V, Xen), or container runtimes.
• Knowledge of high‑speed networking stack internals (TCP/IP, DPDK, RDMA) or storage stacks (NVMe, SCSI).
• Proficiency in scripting languages (Python, PowerShell, Bash) for test automation and build tooling.
• Experience with static code analysis, thread sanitizers, and zero‑trust memory safety standards.