{"id":150880,"url":"https://alion.io/job/collabora-open-source-consulting-linux-kernel-consultant-remoteanywhere","title":"Linux Kernel Consultant (Remote/Anywhere)","company":{"id":14138,"name":"Collabora","domain":"collabora.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/collabora-open-source-consulting","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":null},"role":"Biotech","role_family":"Biotech","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":{"label":"US time zones","utc_offset_min":-8,"utc_offset_max":-5},"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":60000,"max_usd":128000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":19},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":true},{"name":"Debian","optional":true},{"name":"Jenkins","optional":true},{"name":"Rust","optional":true},{"name":"Wi-Fi","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-03-26T14:54:58Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-03-26","last_verified_at":"2026-10-31T05:00:16Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":218,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":218},"description":"About this role\nShip kernel code that runs on millions of devices worldwide. You'll work directly on upstream Linux development for a flagship consumer product while contributing to the broader kernel community. This isn't just maintenance work, you'll be solving hard problems and your code goes upstream. This role suits an engineer who wants to go deep: you will have the space to develop genuine subsystem expertise, build your upstream profile and grow into technical leadership over time.\nThis role combines deep technical work with collaborative consulting. You will partner with client engineering teams to solve their toughest kernel challenges while championing upstream-first approaches.\nLocation: Fully remote (preference for EU or East Coast US hours)\nTravel: Optional conference attendance\nWhat you'll actually do\nUpstream First: Contribute directly to mainline Linux kernel development: schedulers, power management, device drivers and core subsystems\nReal-World Impact: Support and optimise Linux for extremely popular consumer devices used by millions of people\nSolve Hard Problems: Make Linux do things it can't currently do. Push the boundaries of what is possible to mould Linux to suit new use cases. Tackle device failures without the luxury of a stack trace, relying on experience and intuition. Just because Linux doesn't do it currently, doesn't mean we can't invent it.\nCommunity Collaboration: Work with upstream maintainers and represent Collabora at conferences\nClient Partnership: Translate customer needs into technical solutions while advocating for upstream-first approaches. You'll help clients understand why investing in upstream benefits their long-term goals\nNavigate Constraints: Balance technical excellence with real-world pressures: customer deadlines, hardware limitations, business priorities, while keeping code quality high\nBe a Technical Advisor: Explain complex kernel decisions to product teams, provide honest timelines and build trust through transparent communication\nWhat we're looking for\nRequired\nProduct support experience, you are comfortable diagnosing and resolving issues reported by end-users which often require dedication to reproduce from vague bug reports and limited reproduction steps\nSolid Linux kernel development experience, you have spent meaningful time working in the kernel and are comfortable navigating unfamiliar subsystems independently. You do not need to have seen everything, but you should know how to find your way. We are looking for someone who is still building their reputation in the upstream community and wants a role that accelerates that.\nStrong English communication skills, both spoken and written for patch reviews, documentation and client discussions\nSelf-directed work style - you thrive in a remote, asynchronous environment\nNice to have\nUpstream contribution history, we know not every employer makes this easy. If you haven't had the opportunity yet, we'll help you build that profile as part of the role\nConsultancy or client-facing technical background, you know how to balance technical excellence with business constraints, explain kernel internals to product teams, manage expectations across multiple projects and advocate for upstream solutions while respecting customer timelines\nExperience with schedulers, power management, Bluetooth, WiFi or audio subsystems\nFamiliarity with CI/CD for kernel testing (KernelCI, Jenkins, LAVA)\nBackground in BSP development or board bring-up\n Distribution experience (Arch, Debian, Yocto, Buildroot)\nRust programming skills\nWhat we offer\nCompensation & Benefits\nWe offer a competitive benefits package tailored to each country in which we have employees, plus a core global benefit offering accessible to all Collaborans. Our core benefits include:\nCompetitive salary - Salary is location-dependent and benchmarked against local market data. We ask candidates to share their expectations during the application process and engage with those honestly\nConference attendance - we cover expenses and encourage speaking opportunities\nOpen source time - contribute to projects you care about\nOffice setup budget\nSabbatical/Retention of Services, available after five years continuous service\nCo-working policy - support for working outside home\nWellness assessments - biannual well-being assessments with a trained mental health specialist\nWork Environment\nFully remote - work where you’re most productive\nGlobal team - engineers across Europe, Americas and Asia\nNo on-call rotations - while the role involves supporting client engineering teams, there are no on-call rotations or out-of-hours incident response expectations\nFlexible hours - manage your own schedule\nGrowth & Impact\nUpstream contributions - your work shapes Linux, not just client products\nTechnical leadership track - path to principal engineer, subsystem expertise or technical architecture roles\nConsulting track - develop deeper client relationships, lead customer engagements or shape service offerings\nMentorship opportunities - both receiving and providing guidance\nConference speaking - we support presentation submissions and provide coaching\nRecognition - your contributions are public, building your professional reputation\nCulture & Values\nUpstream first - we believe the best solutions benefit everyone\nTransparency - open discussion about technical decisions, business constraints and project challenges\nPragmatism - perfect is the enemy of good; we ship quality code that solves real problems\nRespect for expertise - we trust engineers to make technical decisions\nCollaborative - we succeed by working together, internally and with the community\nSustainable pace - we're here for the marathon, not the sprint\nA day in the life\nMorning (your timezone)\nReview overnight mailing-list discussions on your subsystem(s)\nTriage new customer issue reports\nRespond to client question about kernel panic they're investigating\nPair debug session with colleague on tricky scheduler behaviour\nMidday\nDeep work: finish patch series for power management optimisation\nQuick video call with customer team to explain your proposed approach and timeline\nReview and test colleague's patch before they submit upstream\nAfternoon\nRespond to upstream maintainer feedback on your RFC patch\nUpdate client on progress, discuss trade-offs between fast fix vs. upstream-ready solution\nJoin optional team \"office hours\" to discuss architecture decision\nWrite kernel commit message that explains the \"why\" for future maintainers\nSome days are deep technical work, others involve more client communication. You'll balance both based on project needs and your strengths.\nOur Interview Process\nWe respect your time and provide a clear, structured process:\n Application Review (within 1 week) - we look at your code and contributions\n Initial Chat (30 min) - casual conversation about your experience and our work\n Technical Interview (2 - 3h) Technical Deep-Dive - discuss kernel architecture, past debugging challenges and how you approach problem-solving (no whiteboard coding)\nCode Review Session - review real patches together, discuss trade-offs\nClient Scenario Discussion - talk through a realistic customer situation: balancing technical debt, timeline pressure and upstream goals. We want to see your thought process, not a \"right answer\"\n\n Head of Open Source Software Consulting team Discussion (60 min) - meet the Head of Open Source Software Consulting team, ask about day-to-day work and how Collabora works, discuss compensation and benefits\n Offer (1 week of final interview)\nTotal timeline: 3-4 weeks from application to offer\nWhat happens next?\nInitial response within 1 week\nEven if we don't move forward, we'll tell you why\nCollabora's Commitment\nWe're committed to building a diverse team and inclusive environment. We encourage applications from people under-represented in tech.\nWe evaluate candidates based on skills and contributions, not pedigree. If you're unsure whether you qualify, apply anyway-imposter syndrome is real and you might be exactly who we're looking for.\nWe recognise that the combination of deep kernel expertise and consulting skills is rare. If you have strong kernel development experience and are newer to the consulting side of the role, or vice versa, we want to hear from you. We can develop one if the other is solid.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8356,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"Upper-Intermediate (B2)","optional":false}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Office & Productivity Software","IT Consulting & Digital Transformation"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-03-26T14:54:58Z"},{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-23T00:41:44Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":8,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.271,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":217,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/collabora-open-source-consulting-linux-kernel-consultant-remoteanywhere","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/collabora-open-source-consulting-linux-kernel-consultant-remoteanywhere.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-31T05:45:38Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":8317,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":14138},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=14138"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcollabora-open-source-consulting-linux-kernel-consultant-remoteanywhere"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcollabora-open-source-consulting-linux-kernel-consultant-remoteanywhere"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcollabora-open-source-consulting-linux-kernel-consultant-remoteanywhere"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/collabora-open-source-consulting-linux-kernel-consultant-remoteanywhere\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcollabora-open-source-consulting-linux-kernel-consultant-remoteanywhere"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":150880}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"collabora.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":150880},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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