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Staff Kernel Security Engineer

Crusoe· Cloud Engineering
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San Francisco, CA - US$215k - $260k + equityFull-timePosted 2w ago

About the role

The Crusoe Cloud Software Development team seeks a Staff Software Engineer specializing in Linux Kernel Security to strengthen the security posture of the core Linux kernel and OS components for AI infrastructure.

Responsibilities

  • Kernel Hardening & CVE Triage: Implement kernel security enhancements, manage configuration hardening, and triage incoming CVEs to assess severity and exploitability.
  • Access Control, Boot Security & Guardrails: Enforce mandatory access controls, secure the boot path, and establish CI guardrails and fuzzing coverage to prevent regressions.
  • Vulnerability Research & Analysis: Research vulnerabilities across kernel, driver, and OS components to build proactive mitigations and backport non-trivial upstream fixes to production.
  • Secure Development Practices: Establish and advocate for secure coding standards and best practices for kernel-level development. Conduct security-focused code reviews to identify and eliminate potential vulnerabilities early in the development lifecycle.
  • Security Auditing & Tools: Utilize and develop specialized tools for kernel security auditing, fuzzing, static analysis, and dynamic analysis to uncover hidden vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with security policies.
  • Incident Response Support: Provide expert support during security incidents involving kernel or OS-level compromises, assisting with root-cause analysis, containment, and recovery efforts.
  • Performance and Security Balance: Ensure security enhancements do not unduly impact system performance for high-performance AI infrastructure.
  • First 90 days: Own kernel CVE triage end to end and ship at least one backported fix; identify weakest kernel configurations.
  • First year: Define SLA by severity for kernel security response; establish hardening baseline enforced in CI across supported SKUs; audit Cloud Hypervisor and close high-value isolation gaps.
  • Cloud Hypervisor & Isolation: Audit, harden, and reduce privilege across Cloud Hypervisor device models and vhost-user datapaths; contribute upstream security fixes; advance confidential computing primitives (AMD SEV-SNP, Intel TDX).
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work with hardware, hypervisor, OS development, cloud infrastructure, and security operations to integrate security best practices.
  • Technical Leadership: Mentor junior engineers on kernel security best practices and foster security awareness.
  • Debugging and Root-Cause Analysis: Debug and root-cause complex security-related kernel issues.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field
  • Minimum 5 years of relevant industry experience with at least 3 years focused on low-level operating systems or kernel security
  • Linux Kernel Security Expertise: deep knowledge of Linux kernel internals with focus on security
  • Vulnerability & Exploitation Knowledge: understanding of privilege escalation, information disclosure, DoS, and exploitation techniques
  • Security Mitigations: experience with ASLR, DEP/NX, SMEP/SMAP, KASLR, namespaces, cgroups, LSMs (SELinux/AppArmor)
  • Secure Coding: experience conducting security-focused code reviews, particularly in C
  • Debugging & Analysis Tools: proficiency with GDB, crash, kgdb, Valgrind, ASan, fuzzers
  • Hardware Security Concepts: familiarity with Intel SGX, AMD SEV, ARM TrustZone
  • Safety and Compliance: ability to pass a background check
  • Experience with CVE remediation and automation
  • Proven ability to ship kernel security fixes and enforce security baselines in CI
  • First 90 days and First year performance expectations as stated in role description

Skills

Required:Linux kernel securityVulnerability assessment & exploitationSecure coding & code review (C)Debugging tools
Nice to have:Hardware security concepts

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation and equity packages
  • Restricted Stock Units
  • Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs
  • Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
  • Employer contributions to HSA account
  • Paid parental leave
  • Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
  • Professional development & tuition reimbursement
  • Mental health & wellness support
  • Commuter benefits (parking & transit)
  • Cell phone stipend
  • 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary
  • Volunteer time off
  • Global travel insurance & emergency assistance
  • Daily meals allowance
  • Additional location-specific perks
Last updated Oct 7, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Crusoe

The AI factory company | Renewable-powered AI infrastructure

Crusoe provides next-gen AI infrastructure and cloud compute using an energy-first approach. Deploy AI workloads at scale with reliable performance and 24/7 support.

AI infrastructureData centersEdge computingGPU computingRenewable energycloud computeenergy-first approachsetter-30
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