Senior Systems Engineer, Pixel Stability & Kernel

Socket.dev; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 174,000 - 252,000; Full time

Job summary

Google's Pixel Stability team ensures that every Pixel device delivers a smooth, dependable experience across its lifecycle. Working at the intersection of hardware, kernel, and user space, you will help define stability benchmarks, build automated triage and testing infrastructure, and address crashes, panics, and regressions across the fleet.

Android is Google's mobile operating system powering billions of devices worldwide.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 years of software development experience in one or more languages (C, C++, Python, or Rust).
• 3 years testing, maintaining, or launching software products, and 1 year in software design/architecture.
• 3 years working with embedded OS, Linux kernel internals, or low-level systems programming.
• 2 years debugging and triaging system stability failures (memory corruption, deadlocks, kernel crashes).
• Master’s degree or PhD preferred in related field.
• 5 years experience with data structures/algorithms and low-level performance optimization.
• 1 year in technical leadership leading cross-functional debugging/stability workstreams.
• Experience developing accessible technologies or resilient system software for all users.
• Experience with Android internals, Android Framework, bootloaders, and scripting on consumer devices (Python/Bash).

Responsibilities

• Write and test product or system development code, including kernel patches, on-device diagnostics, and automated stability triage tools for Pixel devices.
• Participate in design reviews to decide among technologies, stability test harnesses, and monitoring infrastructure.
• Review code and ensure best practices, style, testing, and efficiency.
• Contribute to documentation and educational content, updating it with product/program changes and user feedback.
• Triage issues and debug/track/resolve kernel panics, deadlocks, and hardware/service impacts.

Skills

Programming languages experience

Testing and verification

Software design and architecture

Embedded systems / Linux kernel

Debugging and triage

Algorithms (data structures)

Technical leadership

Accessibility-focused design

Android internals scripting

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science / Electrical Engineering / Computer Engineering or related field

Master’s degree or PhD in related field (preferred)

Job description

Google's Pixel Stability team ensures that every Pixel device delivers a smooth, dependable experience across its lifecycle. Working at the intersection of hardware, kernel, and user space, you will help define stability benchmarks, build automated triage and testing infrastructure, and address crashes, panics, and regressions across the fleet.

Android is Google's mobile operating system powering billions of devices worldwide.