Freelance Linux Kernel Development Jobs in California

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience in software development.
• 3 years of experience in a technical leadership role.
• Experience in people management (guiding technical teams, resource allocation, and mentoring).
• Experience in computer architecture and low-level system software development in C.
• Experience with operating systems, including CPU scheduling and memory management.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science or related technical fields.
• 3 years of experience working in a complex, matrixed organization.
• Experience with Linux Kernel Programming and kernel internals (e.g., scheduler, memory management, virtualization/KVM, BPF tracing, PMU).
• Experience with modern systems programming languages, particularly C or Rust.
• Track record of executing complex technical migrations (e.g., legacy systems to modern architectures/languages).
• Knowledge of CPU architectures (x86_64, arm64) and memory models.

About the job
Like Google's own ambitions, the work of a Software Engineer goes beyond just Search. Software Engineering Managers have not only the technical expertise to take on and provide technical leadership to major projects, but also manage a team of Engineers. You not only optimize your own code but make sure Engineers are able to optimize theirs. As a Software Engineering Manager you manage your project goals, contribute to product strategy and help develop your team. Teams work all across the company, in areas such as information retrieval, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, distributed computing, large-scale system design, networking, security, data compression, user interface design; the list goes on and is growing every day. Operating with scale and speed, our exceptional software engineers are just getting started -- and as a manager, you guide the way.
With technical and leadership expertise, you manage engineers across multiple teams and locations, a large product budget and oversee the deployment of large-scale projects across multiple sites internationally.
The Linux Kernel team optimizes massive-scale compute and storage infrastructure. We develop foundational software powering public Google Cloud and internal infrastructure. You will implement features and enhance the Linux Kernel in areas like low-overhead virtualization, memory capacity, memory tiering, advanced CPU scheduling, and security.
As a Software Engineering Manager for Kernel Development, you will lead a team of systems software engineers. You will drive technical architecture and execution roadmaps for core subsystems like memory management, CPU scheduling, BPF, and file systems. Additionally, you will advocate fleet efficiency, security milestones, and development stack modernization.
The AI and Infrastructure team is redefining what's possible. We empower Google customers with breakthrough capabilities and insights by delivering AI and Infrastructure at unparalleled scale, efficiency, reliability and velocity. Our customers include Googlers, Google Cloud customers, and billions of Google users worldwide.
We're the driving force behind Google's groundbreaking innovations, empowering the development of our cutting-edge AI models, delivering unparalleled computing power to global services, and providing the essential platforms that enable developers to build the future. From software to hardware our teams are shaping the future of world-leading hyperscale computing, with key teams working on the development of our TPUs, Vertex AI for Google Cloud, Google Global Networking, Data Center operations, systems research, and much more.
Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.
US: $207000 - $300000 (USD) 20% bonus target equity benefits
Learn more about benefits at Google .
Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of systems software engineers, fostering a collaborative, and high-performance engineering culture.
• Drive the architectural design, implementation, and optimization of core Linux kernel components to meet Google's compute infrastructure demands.
• Partner with other Tech Leads, and cross-functional partners to align execution roadmaps, set technical boundaries, and deliver on critical milestones.
• Advocate engineering excellence, robust testing methodologies, and performance profiling to eliminate system regressions and data integrity risks.
• Work closely with platform infrastructure and Google Cloud leadership team, including obtaining strategic and architectural approvals from executive leadership to launch new platform features.

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