Location: San Francisco, CA (Hybrid: 4 days onsite/week). Relocation assistance available.
About the Role:We're seeking a System Software Engineer to design, implement, and debug core platform components and the pipelines that build and update system images. You'll work across operating system layers, focusing on performance, security, and deep system debugging to ship production-grade systems.
In this role, you will:- Design, implement, and debug system-level components and services across kernel and user space.
- Configure and maintain OS platform services (init, services, networking, security policies) and related tooling.
- Build and operate image and update pipelines, ensuring reliability, reproducibility, and rollback safety.
- Instrument and analyze performance using profiling and tracing; optimize CPU, memory, I/O, and power usage.
- Own platform observability and reliability: logging, crash capture, watchdogs, and diagnostics.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define interfaces and deliver end-to-end features.
- Establish strong engineering practices: code review, CI, reproducible builds, and release management.
- Partner with external suppliers to support builds and deployments.
You might thrive in this role if you:- Have shipped production systems software on modern operating systems.
- Are proficient in C/C++ and a scripting language, and comfortable with OS internals (concurrency, memory management, filesystems, networking, power management).
- Bring strong systems debugging skills using debuggers, tracers, profilers, and logs across kernel/user-space boundaries.
- Understand configuration of platform services and interfaces, and can translate requirements into stable, well-documented APIs.
- Are fluent in user-space foundations (service management, IPC, networking, packaging, automation).
- Have experience building platform images and designing update mechanisms for reliability and security.
Preferred Qualifications:- Exposure to platform security (secure boot, sandboxing, mandatory access controls, attestation).
- Experience with graphics/media, hardware acceleration, or high-throughput data paths.
- Familiarity with connectivity stacks and network configuration.
- Observability and diagnostics in distributed or resource-constrained environments.
- Work on open-source platforms or contributions to systems projects.
