Freelance Linux Kernel Developer Jobs in Kansas (NOW HIRING)

Our Company

At Teradata, we believe that people thrive when empowered with better information. Teradata Autonomous Knowledge Platform activates enterprise intelligence by unifying data, knowledge and business context to achieve tangible outcomes. With Teradata, organizations can provide agents with full context for impact when it matters. Our solution lets businesses connect and scale on premises, in the cloud, or through a hybrid approach. Teradata delivers real business value with AI.

What You’ll Do

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the design, development, and evolution of networking software for our massively parallel processing (MPP) platform, the foundation of our database and AI solutions. You will influence technical direction, mentor engineers, and leverage AI-assisted development tools to accelerate innovation and execution at scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and evolve scalable, reliable, and fault-tolerant networking software for high-speed, low-latency interconnects, delivering predictable performance across large-scale MPP systems.

• Evaluate and drive adoption of emerging technologies across operating systems, high-performance networking, adapters, DPUs, accelerators, and interconnect fabrics.

• Lead complex debugging and root-cause analysis of system-level customer and field issues, including SLES OS crash dump analysis, spanning hardware, firmware, OS, and networking layers.

• Define and execute targeted research initiatives and proof-of-concepts to validate new technologies, quantify performance, and guide platform decisions.

• Partner with product, hardware, and systems engineering teams to scope, prototype, benchmark, and productionize platform enhancements.

• Establish performance benchmarks, validation methodologies, and success metrics for networking and interconnect innovations.

• Influence platform roadmaps through deep understanding of industry trends, academic research, and partner technologies.

• Mentor and technically guide other engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and architectural discussions.

• Leverage AI-assisted coding, analysis, and testing tools to accelerate development cycles and improve code quality and reliability.

Who You’ll Work With

In this role, you will operate across the full lifecycle from research and architecture through production deployment, working closely with platform, hardware, and product engineering teams.

What Makes You a Qualified Candidate

Required Technical Skills:

• Strong background in HPC or large-scale distributed systems development.

• Proven experience with Linux kernel and driver development in C, including production support.

• Deep familiarity with bare-metal and virtualized environments, including performance tradeoffs.

• Expertise in InfiniBand and Ethernet networking, leveraging RDMA and RoCE for low-latency, high-throughput communication.

• Solid understanding of TCP/IP and UDP networking, along with Linux networking, tuning, and diagnostic tools”.

• Packet-level analysis and Linux kernel debugging using tools such as tcpdump, kgdb, and crash.

• Experience designing and optimizing high-throughput, low-latency data transport protocols.

• Strong knowledge of the Linux kernel, including DKMS, driver lifecycle management, and compatibility across kernel versions.

• Proficiency in C, Bash, and Python for systems programming, automation, and diagnostics.

• Experience with massively parallel processing (MPP) using message-passing interfaces.

• Effective use of modern AI-assisted development tools to accelerate design, coding, and debugging.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with DPUs, SmartNICs, or hardware offload technologies.

• Hands-on work with kernel-bypass networking (e.g., RDMA verbs, DPDK, XDP, eBPF).

• Experience with high-speed Ethernet (100G/200G/400G/800G) and modern interconnect fabrics.

• Experience tuning systems for NUMA, CPU affinity, cache locality, and memory bandwidth.

• Exposure to distributed storage or database platforms in production environments.

• Experience working with hardware vendors (NICs, switches, accelerators) on performance or integration issues.

• Contributions to open-source networking, kernel, or systems software projects.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (distributed systems focus preferred), Computer Engineering, or Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

• 7+ years of experience in high-performance Linux systems or networking software development, with demonstrated technical leadership.

What You’ll Bring

• Confidence and resilience, with the ability to navigate technical disagreement, challenge assumptions, and incorporate feedback constructively.

• Proven ability to lead and coordinate real-time troubleshooting of critical (P1) customer issues, rapidly diagnosing system-level failures and driving resolution under pressure.

• Strong influencing skills, capable of aligning cross-functional teams and driving outcomes without direct authority or ownership of resources.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical findings, remediation plans, and customer impact to both technical and business stakeholders.

• A collaborative, self-directed mindset paired with strong intellectual curiosity and continuous learning.

• The ability to thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced environments while bringing clarity, structure, and forward momentum.

Why We Think You'll Love Teradata

We prioritize a people-first culture because we know our people are at the very heart of our success. We embrace a flexible work model because we trust our people to make decisions about how, when, and where they work. We focus on well-being because we care about our people and their ability to thrive both personally and professionally. We are committed to actively working to foster an inclusive environment that celebrates people for all of who they are.

#LI-DL1

Teradata is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, ancestry, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related conditions), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, medical condition, genetic information, gender identity or expression, military and veteran status, or any other legally protected status. We welcome and encourage individuals from all backgrounds to apply and join our team, bringing their unique perspectives and experiences to help us innovate and grow. If you require accommodations during the interview process, please let your recruiter know and we will work with you to meet your needs.

Pay Rate: 156400.0000 - 195600.0000 - 234700.0000 Annually

Starting pay for the successful applicant will depend on geographic location, internal equity, job-related knowledge, skills, and candidate experience. Sales roles will be eligible for commission payments tied to quota achievement. All other permanent roles will be eligible for one of our annual incentive plans, which are based on company financial attainment and individual performance.

Employees in this position are also eligible to participate in the Company’s comprehensive benefits programs, which include healthcare, life and disability insurance plans, a 401(k)-retirement savings plan, and time-off programs. Specific details of these benefits, including eligibility criteria and plan options, will be provided during the hiring process and can be reviewed here: https://www.teradata.com/About-Us/Careers/Benefits