Performance Engineer, Kernel and Memory (Linux)

Location: Hybrid, with available locations in Austin, US; New York, NY; or Washington, DC. Candidates who reach the offer stage may be asked to attend an in-person interview at a hirify.global office or hub.

Company

hirify.global operates a global network that protects and accelerates Internet applications for customers ranging from individual bloggers to Fortune 500 companies.

What you will do

• Diagnose and fix performance and scalability bottlenecks in the Linux kernel memory-management subsystem using production telemetry.
• Develop and upstream Linux kernel memory-management changes, while contributing to maintainership and code review.
• Build and extend low-overhead instrumentation with tracepoints, BPF, and perf to measure system behavior and validate improvements.
• Collaborate with kernel, networking, storage, and product engineers to translate system behavior into memory-management improvements.
• Set technical direction for kernel memory-management tuning and evolution across hirify.global's infrastructure.

Requirements

• Deep expertise in the Linux kernel memory-management subsystem, including the page allocator, virtual memory, memory mapping, reclaim, locking, and concurrency.
• Track record of upstream Linux contributions, ideally including maintainership or sustained work in memory management or an adjacent subsystem.
• Strong systems programming skills in C and sound judgment when making high-risk changes to shared infrastructure.
• Ability to investigate complex codebases while maintaining a fleet-wide perspective and owning outcomes.
• Clear communication skills for collaboration across multiple engineering teams.

Nice to have

• Experience troubleshooting and resolving performance issues in large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience with large-scale configuration and deployment management.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on infrastructure serving more than 46 million HTTP requests per second and reaching approximately 95% of the Internet-connected population within 50 milliseconds.
• Upstream-first engineering culture focused on contributing fixes to the mainline Linux kernel.
• Mission-driven work supporting a free and open Internet through initiatives such as Project Galileo, the Athenian Project, and 1.1.1.1.
• Inclusive workplace with equal employment opportunities and reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants.

Hiring process

• Applicants progressing to the offer stage may be asked to attend an in-person interview at a hirify.global office or hub.
• Employment may require authorization to receive software or technology controlled under U.S. export laws without sponsorship for an export license.