Kernel
kernel.sh
Actively hiring
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Overview
News
Technologies
Salaries
Products
People
Growth
Offices
Jobs
Financials
Funding and backers
Total raised
$22M
1 round on record
Latest round
$22M
Series A · 2025 · 15 mo ago
Team
51-200
employees, estimated range
Hiring now
8
open roles
Backers
2
Y Combinator, Accel
The money's age
Due for its next round
15 months since the last round · hiring slowed
Momentum
15/100
in the news
Last sign of life
this month
a posting or a news item
The story so fareach stage dated by its source: the company's releases, the press, registers, filings
Mar 19
Launched on Hacker News Show HN: We attached vGPUs to sandboxed Chromium then played Doom 3 x WASM on it
Jun 2025
Went through Y Combinator
2025
Founded
2025
Raised a round Series A $22M
Tractionpublic signals, read monthly
Funding rounds
| Round | Date | Amount | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | 2025 | $22M | — | ohiotechnews.com |
Founders and leadersfrom filings, registers and the company's site
Catherine JueCo-founder & CEO
Rafael GarciaCo-founder & CTO
Backed byfrom the funds' portfolios and accelerator catalogs
Y Combinator 
Accel Investors in similar startupsfunds that back the companies most like this one
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How Kernel hires
Truth index
B 75/100
Ghost roles
0%
Stale roles
100%
Reposted roles
0%
Kernel scores B on the Alion truth index (A is best, E worst), measured over 4 open roles re-checked against its own hiring board: 0% look like ghost listings, 100% have gone stale and 0% are the same role posted again. It measures how much of what this employer publishes turns into a real, finite search - not the employer as a workplace. How the index is computed
Overview
Kernel provides browser infrastructure for AI agents and web automations, letting developers spin up cloud browsers in milliseconds and let agents log in and act on websites on behalf of people. It runs sandboxed Chromium on a unikernel platform with sub-150 ms cold starts, stealth mode, residential proxies, CAPTCHA solving, live view, session replay, persistent profiles and a serverless app platform that co-locates agent code with browsers. Founded in 2025 in San Francisco and part of YC S25, Kernel serves Cash App and Rye and raised $22 million across seed and Series A rounds led by Accel.
News
Report
Hard Stop: Kernel-Level Preemption and Containment for Rogue Agentic Execution
Abstract page for arXiv paper 2609.29808: Hard Stop: Kernel-Level Preemption and Containment for Rogue Agentic Execution
Read more
Report
Accelerating the kernel
Kernel developers do a lot of kernel builds. Since the kernel is not a small program, those bu ...
Read more
Report
Ubuntu kernel CVE fixes are moving to a weekly release schedule
Ubuntu kernel CVE fixes will ship weekly as Canonical merges its SRU cycles, with an uncertified fast lane for teams that can't wait.
Read more
Report
Report
Can a language model run in Linux eBPF? eunomia
Can Linux eBPF execute a real language model? A Qwen3-0.6B experiment shows exactly which work runs in the kernel, how fast it is, and why INT4 and arena memory remain open tradeoffs.
Read more
Report
Accelerating delivery of CVE fixes with a new Kernel release strategy
To combat the exponential growth of AI-driven CVEs, Canonical is shifting to a rapid 2-week Linux kernel SRU cycle published weekly. Read about the update.
Read more
Report
Show more news
Tech stack
Technologies named in job postings at Kernel over the last 12 months, by layer, with the share of postings for each.
Technologies in use
15
Postings analysed
8
Stack modernity
77/100AI adopter
Frameworks & libraries
Playwright
Cloud & platforms
Vercel
Framer
GitHub
Sentry
AI & ML
LLM
Sign in to see how your skills match this stack
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Full Kernel tech stack
15 technologies · by team · pay by technology · changes · similar stacks
Salary insights
Compensation ranges based on this company's open jobs
Median
$250k
Typical range
$235k – $265k
Open positions
7
1
Jobs
Middle
100%
| Level | Jobs | Median | Typical range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Middle | 1 | $265k | $265k |
Highest paying role
Account Executive
$265k
Normalized to USD per year
All salaries at Kernel
By role, level and city, against the market · 7 jobs with pay
Products
Kernel app platform
Serverless platform that deploys agent code next to the browsers it controls, plus an auth layer that grants agents controlled permissions.
kernel.sh
Kernel browsers
Browser-as-a-service API with millisecond startup, stealth, proxies and session recording for AI agents.
kernel.sh
People
Catherine Jue
Co-founder & CEO
Previously co-founded Sway Finance (YC S16) and led Cash App's forward-deployed engineering team and docs platform.
Rafael Garcia
Co-founder & CTO
Previously co-founder and CTO of Clever (YC S12), acquired for $500 million in 2021.
Names and roles come from public filings, company registers and the company's own site. Is this you? Correct or remove · How we handle this data
Growth
Hiring Momentum
58/100
Growing
Open positions
8
0 opened / 0 closed in 30 days
ATS activity
Every ~4 hours
Today
Hiring Dynamics
+100%
Hiring Focus
The percentage next to each role is its share of the company's job openings over the last 90 days; the arrow shows the shift versus the previous period.
Security
25% ▼
Product
25% ▲
Sales
25% ▲
Solutions
25% ▲
Activity Timeline
Added TCP/IP to stack
Sep 2026
Added Linux to stack
Sep 2026
Added DNS to stack
Sep 2026
Added Playwright to stack
Sep 2026
Added Model Context Protocol to stack
Sep 2026
Added Browser Agents to stack
Sep 2026
Added X (Twitter) to stack
Sep 2026
Added Supabase to stack
Sep 2026
Added Slack to stack
Sep 2026
Added Sentry to stack
Sep 2026
Added Human-in-the-Loop to stack
Sep 2026
Added GitHub to stack
Sep 2026
Offices
Where the company hires and what each office is for
Cities
5
Hiring now
4
Countries
1
Busiest office
San Francisco
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Headquarters
Builds here
Office with open vacancies
No open vacancies right now Tap a pin for the office
San Francisco
United States
HQ
8 open roles 4 posted in 90 days 38% engineering 10-50 est. staff $246k Avg Salary
hires for Product, Backend, DevOps
New York
United States
Engineering / R&D
8 open roles 4 posted in 90 days 38% engineering 10-50 est. staff $246k Avg Salary
hires for Product, Backend, DevOps
Cincinnati
United States
Regional office
6 open roles 2 posted in 90 days 50% engineering 10-50 est. staff $243k Avg Salary
hires for Product, Backend, DevOps
Seattle
United States
Regional office
5 open roles 1 posted in 90 days 60% engineering 10-50 est. staff $244k Avg Salary
hires for Product, Backend, DevOps
Claymont
United States
Regional office
2093 Philadelphia Pike #8213, Claymont, DE, 19703, US
Jobs
≈ $151k – $317k per year (Estimated) • In office • Full-Time • San Francisco • New York
Model Context Protocol
AI Agents
LLM
Human-in-the-Loop
DevOps
Vercel
Docker
GitHub
Design
Framer
Management
Slack
Discord
QA
Sentry
Apply
$200k – $235k per year • In office • Full-Time • San Francisco • New York • Cincinnati
Model Context Protocol
AI Agents
LLM
Browser Agents
DevOps
Vercel
QA
Playwright
Apply
$225k – $250k per year • In office • Full-Time • San Francisco • New York • Seattle • Cincinnati
AI Agents
DevOps
Vercel
Linux
TCP/IP
DNS
Design
Framer
Apply
$175k – $235k per year • In office • Full-Time • San Francisco • New York • Seattle • Cincinnati
Supabase
AI/ML
AI Agents
Human-in-the-Loop
DevOps
Vercel
Docker
GitHub
Design
Framer
Management
Slack
Discord
QA
Sentry
Apply
$175k – $235k per year • In office • Full-Time • San Francisco • New York • Seattle • Cincinnati
Supabase
AI/ML
AI Agents
Human-in-the-Loop
DevOps
Vercel
Docker
GitHub
Design
Framer
Management
Slack
Discord
QA
Sentry
Apply
$175k – $250k per year • In office • Full-Time • San Francisco • New York • Seattle • Cincinnati
AI Agents
LLM
DevOps
Vercel
Apply
$175k – $250k per year • In office • Full-Time • San Francisco • New York • Seattle • Cincinnati
AI Agents
LLM
DevOps
Vercel
Apply
Financials
Total raised
$22M
Latest round
Series A
Funding rounds
1
Investors
4
Funding rounds
| Round | Announced | Amount | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | 2025 | $22M | Details |
Key Investors
Refinery Ventures
Refinery Ventures is a Cincinnati venture capital firm investing in Midwest-connected software startups.
refineryventures.com
Cintrifuse Capital
Cintrifuse is a Cincinnati organization that runs a fund-of-funds and invests in startups.
cintrifuse.com
Y Combinator
Y Combinator is a startup accelerator and seed investor based in San Francisco.
ycombinator.com
Accel
Accel is a venture capital firm investing in early and growth stage technology companies.
accel.com