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ServiceNow · 2 weeks ago

Senior Staff Linux Kernel Engineer

Kirkland, WA

Full-time

Hybrid

Senior Level, Lead/Staff

$188K/yr - $328K/yr

12+ years exp

ServiceNow is a global market leader in innovative AI-enhanced technology, empowering organizations to work smarter and faster. They are seeking a Senior Staff Linux Kernel Engineer to lead the Red Hat OS and kernel strategy, provide operational support, drive automation, and modernize Linux package distribution across their global cloud footprint.

Agentic AIBusiness Process Automation (BPA)Cloud ManagementEnterprise SoftwareRobotic Process Automation (RPA)SaaS

Growth Opportunities

No H1B

U.S. Citizen Only

Responsibilities

Lead the Red Hat OS & Kernel strategy

Define and maintain the reference RHEL OS baseline (RHEL 8/9 and beyond), including kernel versions, tuning profiles, and hardening standards

Partner with Red Hat and hardware vendors to validate kernels, drivers, and firmware for new platforms and features (NVMe, GPUs, NUMA, cgroups/containers, etc.)

Own kernel operational support at scale

Diagnose and resolve complex kernel-level issues (crashes, hangs, performance regressions) using tools such as crash, kdump, perf, eBPF, systemtap, and systemd/journal analysis

Drive root cause analysis and long-term remediation for OS and kernel incidents, and translate findings into improved standards, automation, and observability

Drive OS automation and configuration at enterprise scale

Design and implement scalable automation using Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) and Red Hat Satellite to manage lifecycle operations (provisioning, patching, subscription/content management, and drift remediation)

Collaborate with Puppet and configuration management team members to ensure a cohesive “everything as code” model for OS configuration across bare metal, VMs, and cloud platforms

Modernize Linux package distribution, observability and supply chain

Define and maintain the strategy for internal RPM repositories, content views, and promotion workflows across environments (dev → staging → production)

Work with security, OS Engineering team members and platform teams to improve software supply-chain integrity for OS packages (signing, SBOMs, auditability)

Define and implement observability standards (metrics, logs, events) for OS and kernel health, ensuring issues can be detected and remediated proactively

Provide technical leadership across the organization

Act as the primary subject-matter expert and escalation point for RHEL and kernel topics across Systems Engineering and partner teams

Support On-call schedule and act as escalation point of contact for Red Hat Linux P0 incidents

Mentor other engineers, drive design reviews, and set high engineering standards for reliability, security, and simplicity in our OS stack

Influence roadmaps across multiple teams to align with OS and kernel best practices, including container platforms, storage, networking, and security

Qualification

Linux expertiseRed Hat ecosystemAnsible Automation PlatformKernel internals knowledgeLarge-scale production experienceInfrastructure as codePython programmingCommunication skillsMentoring abilityProblem-solving skills

Required

Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving. This may include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI's potential impact on the function or industry

Has deep, hands-on expertise with Linux and the Red Hat ecosystem

12+ years operating Linux in production at scale, with significant experience on RHEL (7/8/9) in mission-critical environments with a Bachelor's degree; or 8 years and a Master's degree or a PhD with 5 years experience or equivalent experience

Strong understanding of Linux kernel internals (process scheduling, memory management, cgroups, networking stack, I/O subsystems, SELinux, systemd) and how to tune them for performance and reliability

Is highly skilled with automation and lifecycle tooling

Expert-level experience with Ansible / Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) for OS configuration, orchestration, and remediation

Hands-on experience with Red Hat Satellite (or equivalent) for OS lifecycle, content management, patching, and provisioning at large scale

Familiarity with Puppet (Open Source or Enterprise) and/or other configuration management tools is a strong plus

Understands large-scale production environments

Experience running Linux across thousands of nodes in hybrid environments (bare metal, virtualized, and hyperscaler cloud)

Strong knowledge of networking, storage, and Linux software packaging (RPM, YUM/DNF, repositories, content promotion workflows)

Builds and ships everything as code

Comfortable designing and reviewing infrastructure-as-code solutions, including CI/CD pipelines for OS artifacts and automation content (e.g., GitLab or similar)

Experience writing high-quality code and tooling in languages such as Python, Ruby, Go, or similar, with solid testing and documentation practices

Leads through influence and collaboration

Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional initiatives involving platform, security, SRE, and application teams

Strong communication skills, able to document and present systems architecture and decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Proven track record of mentoring and elevating other engineers, and of setting and enforcing technical standards

Can figure things out

Comfortable digging deep into unfamiliar systems, tools, and kernel internals to identify root causes and design robust solutions

Curious, data-driven, and pragmatic—capable of balancing ideal architecture with real-world constraints and timelines