Staff Linux Kernel Engineer: Edge Networking Lead

Fastly, Inc.; Denver, New York, San Francisco (CO, NY, CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Fastly is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to own end-to-end kernel projects for the Linux edge stack, focusing on high-performance networking and device support. You will drive drivers, NIC choices, and optimizations across a fleet of edge servers, ensuring safe upgrades and upstream contributions.

The role emphasizes building a robust, scalable Linux kernel that underpins Fastly’s edge platform, enabling secure, reliable and low-latency service delivery at the edge for global customers.

Qualifications

• Proven Linux kernel development experience.
• Experience with XDP and eBPF.
• Strong networking and driver knowledge.
• Ability to own problems end-to-end and upstream changes.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for kernel projects, own them end to end from problem statement to fleet rollout, and mentor engineers on the team
• Take new servers, CPUs and NICs from first boot to full fleet: drivers, IRQ affinity, RSS and queue layout on high core count hosts
• Improve datapath and transport performance with XDP, eBPF and protocol work based on IETF specifications
• Debug problems that cross layers with application teams, such as MTU behavior, cgroup memory accounting and packet filtering
• Develop and maintain kernel changes and Fastly kernel modules on our long term kernel line, and reduce our private delta by upstreaming
• Make sure state pushed from control planes to eBPF and XDP programs is applied, verified and safe to roll back
• Own kernel health in production: triage crashes, WARNs and regressions across the fleet, find the root cause and ship the fix
• Own and improve the kernel release process and

Skills

Linux kernel

XDP

eBPF

Networking

C/C++

Systems design

Mentoring

Job description

Fastly is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to own end-to-end kernel projects for the Linux edge stack, focusing on high-performance networking and device support. You will drive drivers, NIC choices, and optimizations across a fleet of edge servers, ensuring safe upgrades and upstream contributions.

The role emphasizes building a robust, scalable Linux kernel that underpins Fastly’s edge platform, enabling secure, reliable and low-latency service delivery at the edge for global customers.