Crusoe is on a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. As the only vertically integrated AI infrastructure company built from the ground up, we own and operate each layer of the stack — from electrons to tokens — to power the world's most ambitious AI workloads. When you join Crusoe, you join a team that is building the future, faster.
We're in the midst of the greatest industrial revolution of our time. The demand for AI compute is boundless, and power is a bottleneck. We're solving that — with an energy-first approach that makes AI infrastructure better for the world and faster for the people innovating with AI.
We're looking for problem-solving, opportunity-finding teammates with a sense of urgency, who believe in the scale of our ambition and thrive on a path not fully paved — people who want to grow their careers alongside a team of experts across energy, manufacturing, data center construction, and cloud services.
If you want to do the most meaningful work of your career, help our customers and partners advance their AI strategies, and be part of a high-performing team that believes in each other, come build with us at Crusoe.
About This Role:
Crusoe is seeking a Staff Linux Kernel Engineer to serve as the primary technical authority for our operating system and hardware-interface layer. This is a "heavy-lifting" engineering role designed for someone who views the Linux kernel not just as an OS, but as a programmable substrate for AI performance.
As a Staff Engineer, you will own the most critical paths of our compute stack. You will be responsible for upstream-quality development, custom kernel modules, and the low-level orchestration of memory and I/O that allows our GPU clusters to operate at the theoretical limits of the silicon. You will bridge the gap between bare-metal hardware and the virtualization layer, ensuring that Crusoe's "Metal-as-a-Service" offering remains the most performant in the industry. This is a full-time role for a systems specialist who thrives on pushing hardware to its absolute boundaries.
What You’ll Be Working On:
- Core Kernel Architecture: Architect and implement enhancements to the Linux kernel’s memory management (MM), process scheduler, and I/O stack specifically for high-tenancy AI/HPC workloads.
- Module & Driver Development: Develop and maintain out-of-tree kernel modules and drivers that manage high-speed interconnects (NVSwitch/NVLink) and hardware accelerators.
- Upstream Contribution: Identify, backport, and contribute fixes and features to the mainline Linux kernel, ensuring Crusoe remains at the forefront of kernel innovation.
- PCIe & IOMMU Interfacing: Lead the implementation of VFIO and SR-IOV strategies to provide secure, near-zero-latency hardware passthrough to virtualized environments.
- DMA & GPUDirect RDMA Optimization: Optimize DMA mapping and memory pinning strategies to facilitate high-speed data transfers between NICs and GPUs without CPU intervention.
- Hardware-Software Co-Design: Work with hardware vendors to debug and influence the design of firmware and silicon-level features that impact kernel stability and performance.
- Advanced Profiling & Observability: Utilize eBPF, ftrace, and perf to build deep observability into kernel-space bottlenecks and latency spikes.
- Deep-System Debugging: Lead investigations into complex system-level failures, including kernel panics, memory leaks, and non-deterministic hardware behavior.
- Technical Mentorship: Lead large-scale architectural shifts and mentor senior engineers on the nuances of systems-level safety and performance.
What You’ll Bring to the Team:
- Deep Systems Experience: 8+ years of systems programming experience, with at least 5 years focused specifically on Linux Kernel development.
- Profound Kernel Internals Knowledge: Expert understanding of the VFS, block layer, task scheduling, and interrupt handling.
- C & Assembly Mastery: Expert-level mastery of C and the ability to read/debug architecture-specific assembly (x86_64, ARM64).
- Virtualization Mastery: Extensive experience with KVM internals and the complex interaction between the hypervisor and the host kernel.
- Advanced Memory Management: Deep knowledge of SLAB/SLUB allocators, page table management, and NUMA-aware memory allocation strategies.
- eBPF Expertise: Proficiency in using eBPF for both observability and networking/security (XDP) applications.
- Analytical Leadership: The ability to establish gold-standard performance metrics for kernel-level operations that directly impact AI training times.
Bonus Points:
- A history of significant contributions to the mainline Linux kernel (please include links to commits or mailing list discussions if possible).
- Experience working with InfiniBand, RoCE, or other high-performance networking stacks at the driver level.
- Familiarity with the specific memory-consistency models and I/O requirements of NVIDIA Blackwell or Hopper architectures.
- Previous experience in a "Metal-as-a-Service" or Hyperscale cloud environment.
Benefits:
- Paid time off & paid holidays
- Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
- Employer contributions to HSA account
- Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
- Professional development & tuition reimbursement
- Mental health & wellness support
- Commuter benefits (parking & transit)
- 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary
Compensation Range
Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $208,600 - $254,4000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicants knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.
Crusoe is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, citizenship, marital status, sex/gender, sexual preference/ orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, national origin, or any other status protected by law or regulation.