OpenAI
Operating Systems Engineer, Linux Kernel | Consumer Devices
$230K–$385K
San Francisco · Full-time · Posted Sep 21, 2026
- Experience
- Substantial hands-on experience; no specific number of years stated.
About the job
Develops and maintains Linux kernel capabilities and supporting userspace components for consumer devices, taking features from design through integration and production.
What you'll do
- Design, implement, and maintain Linux kernel subsystem changes and end-to-end kernel/userspace features.
- Debug and validate system correctness, concurrency, performance, power, and reliability using diagnostics, tests, and representative workloads.
- Collaborate across hardware, firmware, platform, and application teams; contribute reviewable kernel patches and maintain product-specific changes.
What they ask for
- Substantial hands-on experience developing and debugging one or more Linux kernel subsystems.
- Proficiency in C for kernel and low-level systems development.
- Strong understanding of kernel concurrency, synchronization, memory ownership, and resource lifetimes.
- Experience delivering systems capabilities across kernel and userspace, including interface design and cross-boundary debugging; understanding of Linux kernel development practices.
Nice to have
- Proficiency in Rust for systems programming, including Linux kernel code alongside C.
- Participation in the Linux community through contributions, review, testing, reports, discussions, or maintainer collaboration.
Pay
$230K – $385K USD base salary
Tools
Linux kernel, C, Rust
AI focus
The role builds operating-system capabilities for consumer devices intended to bring AI into everyday life; no specific AI development work is stated.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative