Staff Software Engineer, Kernel

About the role

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.

We are looking for a Staff Engineer who is passionate about the Linux kernel.

As a Staff Engineer at DigitalOcean, you will work as a high-level technical leader responsible for designing, optimizing, and maintaining Linux kernels for our compute and GPU fleets. You will optimize and enhance core system performance, resiliency, and security, ensuring our products consistently exceed customer expectations. You will bridge hardware and software, driving system-level architecture, debugging performance bottlenecks, and mentoring senior engineers.

What You’ll Do:

Optimize kernels for performance and resiliency across the DigitalOcean fleet for storage, networking, and virtualization

Drive cross-functional engineering initiatives and influence hardware roadmaps without direct authority

Define low-level software architecture

Tune kernels for low latency, high throughput, and power efficiency

Diagnose and resolve issues in the kernel

Deliver critical kernel fixes and security mitigations with kernel live patches

Investigate and resolve virtual machine downtime and kernel issues in our production environment

Implement monitoring and alerting of key metrics to drive resiliency of compute infrastructure

Improve tooling and automation for testing and deployment of Linux kernels

Lead initiatives to enhance shared infrastructure, balancing performance optimization with rigorous security standards

Work cross-functionally to harness new performance capabilities from evolving hardware architectures

Participate in on-call rotations as needed to support system reliability

Work with Linux kernel community to push changes upstream

What You’ll Add to DigitalOcean:

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Computer/Electrical Engineering or equivalent work experience

Experience maintaining Linux kernels for large-scale cloud infrastructure, with a deep understanding of operating system internals

Broad knowledge of the Linux kernel and kernel subsystems

Demonstrated experience with kernel patching and debugging

Debugging skills with Linux kernel and kernel drivers

Expertise in C/C++ programming and one or more scripting languages

Familiarity with compiler toolchains, build environments

Experience with Linux virtualization using KVM, QEMU

General understanding of Linux kernel security mechanisms and common security concepts

Familiarity with x86_64 and/or ARM architectures

Experience contributing patches to the upstream Linux kernel community is highly preferred

Demonstrated ability to solve complex problems at scale

Excellent cross-team collaboration and communication skills

Professional-level written and spoken English with strong presentation abilities

Compensation Range:

$191,200 - $239,000

*This is a hybrid role

JR: 2026-7920

#LI-Hybrid
Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean

We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.

We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.

We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.

We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.

DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.