Kernel Resilience Engineer - Canonical Ubuntu at Canonical

Job Overview

• Canonical is building a Kernel Resilience team to harden the Ubuntu kernel. This team will drive proactive efforts to exercise and stretch the stability, reliability, and security of the kernel. Kernel Resilience takes responsibility for the overall quality of the Linux kernel, through aggressive test frameworks and regimens, hardening the kernel against exploits and vulnerabilities, as well as building and maintaining a highly automated kernel build and test infrastructure. We have access to a very large array of hardware, and we would like to keep it busy!
• This is not a role for button pushers to monitor results!  We will select candidates who make it their mission to crash or penetrate the kernel, and then drive the eventual resolution of discovered issues. You will be expected to raise the bar on industry best practices, to push the limits of possibility on proactive, gloves-off stress testing.
• The successful candidate will have experience covering some combination of Linux kernel development, quality assurance, security exploits, and back-end development. You may be a seasoned kernel developer looking for a new challenge in back-end automation. You may always have wanted to ‘go deeper’ into the kernel?  Curiosity and a desire to ‘poke it and see what happens’ will be essential for this role.

Responsibilities
What you’ll do

• Work with bleeding edge and early access systems and hardware
• Ensure an ongoing commitment to industry-leading quality, reliability and security standards
• Proactively identify security and stability issues by devising ingenious new ways to break the Linux kernel
• Contribute to the development of an advanced Linux kernel build service
• Engage with other teams at Canonical, the open source community and commercial partners
• Work from home with global travel up to 20% for internal and external events

Requirements
Who you are:

• Earned a Bachelor’s (or equivalent university level) degree, preferably in a Technology field
• Innovative out-of-the-box style thinker not afraid to break things
• Significant programming experience in Python, with strong C skills highly regarded
• Ability to communicate effectively in English, both written and oral
• Someone with high standards for overall quality, and not afraid to ensure they are met
• At ease working in several different technical domains concurrently
• Substantial experience in Linux system configuration, customization, and deployment
• Solid understanding Linux kernel internals and development principles
• Deep knowledge of security as it relates to the Linux kernel
• Productive in a globally distributed team through self-discipline and self-motivation, delivering on time
• Contributed to an open source project in the past
• Understanding of agile software development methodologies

What Canonical Offers

• Learning and development
• Annual compensation review
• Recognition rewards
• Annual leave
• Priority Pass for travel