Systems Engineer, Kernel

CoreWeave is The Essential Cloud for AI™. Built for pioneers by pioneers, CoreWeave delivers a platform of technology, tools, and teams that enables innovators to build and scale AI with confidence. Trusted by leading AI labs, startups, and global enterprises, CoreWeave combines superior infrastructure performance with deep technical expertise to accelerate breakthroughs and turn compute into capability. Founded in 2017, CoreWeave became a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: CRWV) in March 2025.

About The Role

CoreWeave is seeking a highly skilled and motivated Systems Kernel Engineer to join our HAVOCK Team, reporting into the Manager of Systems Engineering. In this role, you will be a key contributor to the stability, performance, and evolution of CoreWeave’s Linux-based infrastructure. As a kernel generalist, you will debug kernel-level issues, analyze and fix crashes, panics, dumps, and upstream fixes and features that improve the performance and reliability of our stack. This position is ideal for someone who thrives in low-level systems engineering, understands how modern workloads stress kernels, and is excited to work across a diverse hardware/software ecosystem including CPUs, GPUs, DPUs, networking, and storage.

• Triage and fix kernel crashes and performance regressions.
• Develop, test, and upstream kernel patches relevant to CoreWeave’s hardware/software environment.
• Collaborate with hardware vendors and the Linux community on feature enablement.
• Implement diagnostics and tooling for kernel-level observability.
• Work closely with HPC and Fleet teams to ensure kernel readiness for production workloads.
• Provide kernel-level expertise during incident response and root-cause investigations.

Responsibilities

• Kernel Debugging – Analyze kernel crashes, oopses, panics, and dumps to identify root causes and propose fixes.
• Upstream Contributions – Develop patches for the Linux kernel and upstream them where applicable (networking, storage, virtualization, GPU/DPU enablement).
• Stack-Wide Support – Ensure kernel support and stability across:
  • Virtualization (KubeVirt, QEMU, vFIO)
  • Container runtimes (containerd, nydus, kubelet)
  • HPC/AI workloads (CUDA, GPUDirect, RoCE/InfiniBand)
• Kernel-Hardware Enablement – Support new hardware bring-up across Intel, AMD, ARM CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs, DPUs, and NICs.
• Performance & Stability – Tune kernel subsystems for latency, throughput, and scalability in distributed HPC/AI clusters.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional experience in Linux kernel engineering or systems-level development.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Deep understanding of kernel internals (memory management, scheduling, networking, storage, drivers).
• Experience debugging kernel crashes, dumps, and panics using tools like crash, gdb, kdump.
• Strong C programming skills with the ability to write maintainable and upstream-quality code.
• Experience working with kernel modules, drivers, and subsystems.
• Strong problem-solving abilities with a “full-stack” systems perspective.

Preferred Qualifications

• Contributions to the Linux kernel or related open-source projects.
• Familiarity with virtualization (KVM, QEMU, VFIO) and container runtimes.
• Networking stack expertise (InfiniBand, RoCE, TCP/IP performance tuning).
• GPU/DPU bring-up and driver experience.
• Experience in HPC or large-scale distributed systems.
• Familiarity with QA/QE best practices.
• Experience working in Cloud environments.
• Experience as a software engineer writing large-scale applications.
• Familiarity with machine learning.

Our Team’s Stack

• Python, Go, bash/sh, c
• Prometheus, Victoria Metrics, Grafana
• Linux Kernel (custom build), Ubuntu
• Intel/AMD/ARM CPUs, Nvidia GPUs, DPUs, Infiniband and Ethernet NICs
• Docker, Kubernetes (k8s), KubeVirt, containerd, kubelet

Pay

The base salary range for this role is $165,000 to $242,000. The starting salary will be determined based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location. In addition to base salary, our total rewards package includes a discretionary bonus, equity awards, and a comprehensive benefits program (all based on eligibility).

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance - 100% paid for by CoreWeave
• Company-paid Life Insurance
• Voluntary supplemental life insurance
• Short and long-term disability insurance
• Flexible Spending Account
• Health Savings Account
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Ability to Participate in Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)
• Mental Wellness Benefits through Spring Health
• Family-Forming support provided by Carrot
• Paid Parental Leave
• Flexible, full-service childcare support with Kinside
• 401(k) with a generous employer match
• Flexible PTO
• Catered lunch each day in our office and data center locations
• A casual work environment
• A work culture focused on innovative disruption