Senior Systems Engineer (Linux Kernel)

TL;DR

Senior Systems Engineer (Linux Kernel/Kubernetes): Debugging and fixing complex failures at the boundary between the Linux kernel and Kubernetes orchestration for one of the world's largest GPU fleets with an accent on memory management, scheduling, and namespaces. Focus on identifying root causes of kernel panics and crashes and upstreaming patches to the Linux and Kubernetes ecosystems.

Location: Must be based in Livingston, NJ; New York, NY; Sunnyvale, CA; or Bellevue, WA. Must be a U.S. person (citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee) for export control compliance.

Salary: $182,000 – $242,000

Company

CoreWeave is The Essential Cloud for AI™, providing a high-performance platform that enables innovators to build and scale AI infrastructure.

What you will do

• Debug and resolve complex issues at the kernel/Kubernetes boundary, including pod evictions and cgroup accounting errors.
• Analyze cgroups (v1/v2), namespaces, the OOM killer, and the CPU scheduler (CFS) to fix architectural bugs.
• Identify root causes of kernel crashes, panics, and hangs using tools like crash, gdb, and kdump.
• Develop and upstream Linux kernel patches to the mainline kernel, container runtimes, or Kubernetes.
• Build diagnostics and observability tooling for kernel- and cgroup-level monitoring.
• Collaborate with hardware and platform teams to ensure production readiness for AI workloads.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional experience in Linux kernel engineering or systems-level development.
• Deep knowledge of kernel internals, including memory management, scheduling, cgroups, and namespaces.
• Proficiency in C programming for writing upstream-quality code.
• Hands-on experience debugging kernel dumps and panics using crash, gdb, or kdump.
• Working knowledge of the container/Kubernetes stack (containerd, runc, kubelet, CRI).
• Must be a U.S. person or eligible for export control authorization.

Nice to have

• Experience upstreaming patches to the Linux kernel, containerd, runc, or Kubernetes.
• Familiarity with eBPF for kernel-level tracing and observability.
• Experience with kernel networking (TCP/IP, RDMA/RoCE) or storage subsystems at scale.
• Experience debugging GPU/DPU driver or hardware-enablement issues.
• Background in HPC or large-scale distributed systems.

Culture & Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance (100% company-paid).
• 401(k) with generous employer match and Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP).
• Flexible PTO and paid parental leave.
• Family-forming support via Carrot and mental wellness benefits via Spring Health.
• Catered lunch provided daily at office and data center locations.
• Innovative, disruption-focused work culture.