Lead Linux Systems Engineer - Fleet-Scale Ubuntu Core

Socket.dev; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Socket.dev is seeking an experienced OS internals engineer to own the Ubuntu Core-based platform, ensuring security, stability, and performance across a large fleet. You will lead the infrastructure function, providing technical direction and driving incremental improvements across kernel, image management, and fleet tooling.

You will oversee deployment pipelines, maintain the display-server stack, and ensure applications stay stable under real-world load.

Qualifications

• 8+ years running production Linux systems with depth in kernel, boot, init, storage, networking internals.
• Experience deploying and updating Linux at fleet scale on Ubuntu Core: snap packaging, confinement, channels/tracks, transactional updates, fleet management.
• Track record of keeping production applications stable and fast on Linux, including profiling and performance debugging.
• Strong security background: reading advisories, understanding attack surface, patching without breaking things.
• Hands-on experience with display servers and GPU stacks beyond desktop use case.

Responsibilities

• Own the Linux platform end to end: kernel/base snaps, patch cadence, image management, end-of-life planning.
• Run deployment and update pipelines that push OS, driver, apps, and configuration changes across a large number of units with canaries and rollouts.
• Maintain the display-server layer (Ubuntu Frame/Mir, Wayland, X11, GPU drivers) on embedded and server hardware.
• Ensure applications are stable under real-world load: resources limits, service supervision, restart behavior, dependency management.
• Define health/performance baselines, set up alerting for regressions, and lead root-cause analysis when issues arise.
• Own OS security posture: hardening baselines, access control, secure boot, disk encryption, AppArmor/seccomp.
• Lead and mentor engineers; set priorities across OS, fleet, application, and cloud reliability work.
• Be the escalation point for anything below the application code itself.

Skills

Linux internals

Kernel/Boot/Init

Scripting Bash/Python

Observability tooling

Mentoring/leadership

Written communication

Tools

snap packaging

Landscape

Prometheus

Grafana

systemd

Job description

Socket.dev is seeking an experienced OS internals engineer to own the Ubuntu Core-based platform, ensuring security, stability, and performance across a large fleet. You will lead the infrastructure function, providing technical direction and driving incremental improvements across kernel, image management, and fleet tooling.

You will oversee deployment pipelines, maintain the display-server stack, and ensure applications stay stable under real-world load.