Senior II Linux Kernel Engineer — Cloud Platform

Akamai Technologies GmbH; Cambridge (MA); Hybrid; USD 146,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

FlexBase program

Healthcare benefits

401K plan

PTO

Job summary

Akamai Technologies GmbH in Cambridge, MA is seeking a Senior II Software Engineer to help build and maintain Akamai's custom Linux kernel and distribution, ensuring security, performance, and reliability across a massive global network.

You will collaborate with distributed teams and upstream kernel work, focusing on C development, kernel internals, and cross-architecture support. This role emphasizes automation, reliability engineering, and close collaboration with hardware and test teams.

Qualifications

• Eight years of relevant experience and a Bachelor's degree or equivalent.
• Three plus years of C software development focusing on Linux kernel development and scripting (Perl/Python/Shell).
• Solid understanding of Linux kernel internals and kernel debugging.
• Familiarity with at least two subsystems such as memory management, filesystems, block IO, TCP/IP stack, or KVM.
• Comfort with both x86 and ARM CPU architectures.
• Good working knowledge of concurrent programming, data structures, algorithms, and network protocols (TCP/UDP/IP, Ethernet, QUIC, HTTP/TLS).
• Self-starter who collaborates well and can work independently.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Develop new features to improve performance, reliability, and security of Akamai Cloud Platform.
• Port existing Akamai modifications to newer Linux kernel versions.
• Debug and fix issues in test and production environments.
• Enhance build and test automation for Continuous Testing.
• Collaborate with platform, application, testing teams and hardware development teams.
• Work with open source community to upstream work.
• Stay current with upstream Linux kernel changes and industry trends.

Skills

C programming

Linux kernel development

Kernel debugging

Scripting (Perl/Python)

x86 and ARM

Networking protocols

Memory management

Filesystems

Upstream collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

KVM

Job description

Akamai Technologies GmbH in Cambridge, MA is seeking a Senior II Software Engineer to help build and maintain Akamai's custom Linux kernel and distribution, ensuring security, performance, and reliability across a massive global network.

You will collaborate with distributed teams and upstream kernel work, focusing on C development, kernel internals, and cross-architecture support. This role emphasizes automation, reliability engineering, and close collaboration with hardware and test teams.