Backend Engineer

Job Title: Senior Linux Kernel Engineer

Experience: 5–10 Years

Location: Bangalore / Chennai

Domain: Enterprise Linux / Kernel Development

Job Summary

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Linux Kernel Engineer with deep expertise in kernel development, debugging, and performance optimization. The role involves working on enterprise-grade Linux distributions, kernel lifecycle management, security patching, and low-level hardware integration.

Key Responsibilities

1. Kernel Lifecycle & Maintenance

• Lead kernel upgrade strategies (e.g., LTS migrations such as 5.15 → 6.x) while ensuring stability and compatibility.
• Perform patch porting across kernel versions, resolving API and dependency conflicts.
• Track and mitigate security vulnerabilities by monitoring CVEs and upstream sources (e.g., LKML).
• Backport critical fixes to production kernels without impacting system stability.

2. Debugging & System Stability

• Act as an escalation point for kernel panics and system crashes.
• Perform post-mortem analysis using kdump, crash, and gdb.
• Debug early boot issues (UEFI, initramfs, kernel initialization).
• Conduct performance analysis using eBPF, ftrace, and perf to optimize system behavior.

3. Driver Development & Hardware Integration

• Design, develop, and maintain device drivers (network, storage, GPU, or character devices).
• Work closely with hardware through DMA, interrupts (MSI-X), and register-level programming.
• Maintain out-of-tree drivers using DKMS or similar frameworks.
• Ensure compatibility of drivers across kernel updates.

Required Technical Skills

• Programming: Strong expertise in C (mandatory) and C++
• Kernel Internals: Deep understanding of:
• Virtual File System (VFS)
• Memory Management (MMU, Paging)
• Process Scheduler
• Linux Networking Stack
• Debugging Tools:
• kdump, crash, gdb
• kprobes, trace-cmd, ftrace
• perf, valgrind
• Hardware debugging tools (JTAG, Serial Console)
• Build Systems:
• Kbuild, Makefiles
• Kernel packaging (RPM/Debian)
• Security:
• Experience with CVE patching and backporting
• Knowledge of SELinux/AppArmor
• Kernel hardening (FIPS, KSPP)

Preferred Skills

• Experience contributing to open-source kernel projects
• Familiarity with Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) workflows
• Exposure to enterprise Linux distributions (RHEL, Ubuntu, SUSE)
• Experience with performance tuning and system optimization at scale

1. Core Programming (C Language)

• Must have strong hands-on experience in C programming
• Comfortable with pointers, memory management, and low-level concepts

2. Kernel Internals Expertise

• Should have worked in at least one subsystem:
• VFS / File Systems
• Memory Management
• Scheduler / Networking

3. Debugging & Crash Analysis

• Experience handling kernel panics
• Hands-on with vmcore analysis tools

4. Security & Patching

• Understanding of CVE fixes and backporting

5. Driver Development

• Experience in writing or maintaining device drivers

6. Performance & Advanced Debugging

• Exposure to eBPF, ftrace, perf

7. Hardware-Level Understanding

• Knowledge of DMA, interrupts, hardware interaction

Soft Skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to work independently and in collaborative environments
• Quick learner with adaptability to new technologies

As a Backend Engineer you will be responsible for creating REST APIs which are used to drive the User Interface. Given the nature of the application, these APIs need to be very efficient and high performing. This requires optimizing queries for faster execution and introducing database changes that may be required. We are looking for individuals with great attention to detail, who are genuine, confident, committed and not only passionate about technology, but excited to work in a fun and friendly start-up environment. The ideal candidate will be passionate about technology and GETTING IT DONE.

Responsibilities:

• Develop, test, implement and maintain application software
• Take part in software and architectural development activities
• Debug application issues and helping support respond to client queries
• Participate in application development meetings
• Provide accurate estimates, clearly communicate status of tasks and identification of risks
• Commitment to accomplishing the task at hand and identify the fastest and most reliable way to solve a problem
• Performance tuning of application code at different service levels
• Interact with customers of the application and help address issues reported

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
• 3+ years of experience with Java and Spring frameworks.
• Having good knowledge in a scripting language like python is a plus
• Experience with Spring and Hibernate/ ORM
• Understanding of relational database and normal forms
• Understanding of NoSQL / RDBMS (Mongo or Postgres) and ability to write optimized and high performing queries
• Strong understanding of Java concurrency, concurrency patterns, experience building thread safe code
• Experience building RESTful web services
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Strong interpersonal skills and time management skills
• Strong problem solving and analytical skills
• Experience with GIT as a VCS, Unix based systems
• Experience with NoSQL Database is a plus
• Following are a set of 'good to have' skills React AWS Bitbucket, JIRA

What We’re Looking For

• 4+ years of backend development experience in scalable web applications.
• Strong expertise in Python, Django ORM, and RESTful API design.
• Familiarity with relational databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL databases
• Comfortable working in a startup environment with multiple priorities.
• Understanding of cloud-native architectures and SaaS models.
• Strong ownership mindset and ability to work with minimal supervision.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills.

💥 What will you do?

As a Lead Backend Engineer, you will

• Build out and help scale our Django (+ReactJS / VueJS) based web application as we add new features and customers

• Help us transition from monolithic system architecture to microservices and serverless system architecture to help meet our future scaling requirements

• Collaborate on a daily basis with a small, nimble team of product managers, engineers, and UX designers to understand business requirements and user experience goals and pain points.
• Build out features to enable multi-channel customer acquisition include partner channels, enterprise channels, and government channels
• Integrate third-party plugins to enhance customer experience and internal tooling build internal tooling to improve internal team efficiencies.
• Actively participate in code reviews
• Work with our quality assurance team to improve coverage on our automated testing suites

🙋 What are we looking for? 

While we do not have a strict list of requirements for candidates interested in this role, some indicators that you would fit this role and our engineering culture are 

• Prior experience of a few years (3+ years) with python based frameworks as Django or Flask would be essential to work on our application stack.

• You actively promote a culture of engineering excellence some of which could be writing efficient code, use of elegant design patterns, and styling your code through code-linting policies.

• You enjoy designing software architecture by collaborating with engineering managers, architects, and other lead engineers to explore existing systems, determining areas of complexity, potential risks to successful implementation.

• You enjoy coaching folks to achieve outcomes through nudges.

📢 Other information you may want to consider 

• We will be flexible for the rest of the pandemic and work remotely; however, we are not a remote-first company, and the work location would be Bangalore when things settle.
• Our backend tech stack includes Django, FastAPI, Postgres, Redis, Clickhouse, and TigerGraph. Our environments are managed through Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform.

• Python. Django Rest Framework experience would be great, but not essential! We prioritise
• quality over quantity.
• Postgres with InfluxDB, Oracle, MySQL and Redis experience a plus.
• Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, OpenShift and associated tooling.
• AWS, especially ECS, Lambda, RDS and DynamoDB. Performance and uptime are super
• important to us.
• The challenge of scaling a global, distributed API to 10,000+ requests per second.
• We have SDKs in a bunch of languages, so the more polyglot you are the better.
• If you like writing JS and React that would be awesome too.

• 2+ years experience in application development

• experience with Python and Javascript is required. 

• good knowledge of operating systems and networking concepts

• experience in using and understanding code from Open Source

• Strong command of NoSQL and ability to design schemas.

• Knowledge of front-end technologies such as React Native, React.js, or Javascript

• Experience with cloud infrastructure tools in AWS and Google Cloud

• experience with implementing best software engineering practices like version control with git, code reviews, writing unit-tests, writing readable code

• inclination towards researching new technologies and adapt them to solve challenges we face.

• Address all tech challenges and continue with tech innovation in order to improve business operations

• Experience with Live video stream a plus.

• Experience with AI preferred.