# Engineering Manager, Linux Team

**Company:** [Cloudflare](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/cloudflare)
**Location:** Unspecified
**Role:** Engineering Management
**Salary:** $170k – $303k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Linux Kernel, CI/CD, X86 Architecture, Arm Architecture, Memory Management, Schedulers, Network Stacks, Open Source, Dora Metrics, Kernel Debugging
**Posted:** 2026-06-05

> Manage and mentor a team of kernel and systems engineers, owning the Linux kernel lifecycle and driving Cloudflare's OS roadmap with a focus on stability, automation, and upstream contributions.

## Job Description

## What You’ll Do

**Lead and Mentor:** Manage a high-performing team of kernel and systems engineers, fostering a culture of "collaboration-first" and continuous knowledge sharing both internally and with the global open-source community.

**Own the OS Lifecycle:** Oversee the end-to-end delivery of the Linux Kernel and core OS components. Your goal is a fully automated continuous delivery pipeline that moves from merge to 100% production in less than 30 days.

**Drive Technical Vision:** Steer the Cloudflare kernel development roadmap. You will balance the need for cutting-edge features with the absolute requirements of production stability, security, and performance.

**Upstream Advocacy:** Promote a "minimal patch" philosophy by ensuring your team is a top contributor to the Linux Kernel. You will support engineers in becoming upstream maintainers for critical subsystems.

**Cross-Functional Collaboration:** Act as a consultant to hardware and service teams, helping them onboard new hardware and optimize workloads for our OS. You’ll lead a "virtual team" environment where any engineer at Cloudflare can contribute to the kernel.

**Innovate Debugging:** Tackle the "impossible" challenges of kernel-level debugging. You will lead the development of automated systems that collect critical telemetry when a system crashes, even when traditional debuggers cannot run.

**Measure Success:** Use DORA metrics and team-specific capabilities - such as the "time to fix a kernel issue" and upstream commit volume - to track and improve team impact.

## What You’ll Bring

**Systems Leadership:** 5+ years of experience managing engineering teams, ideally in low-level systems, kernel development, or large-scale infrastructure environments.

**Low-Level Expertise:** A deep understanding of Linux Kernel internals, x86/ARM architecture, and OS design fundamentals. You should be comfortable discussing memory management, schedulers, and network stacks.

**Automation Mindset:** Experience building or managing CI/CD pipelines for foundational software. You believe that "toil" is a bug and automation is the feature.

**Open Source Pedigree:** A proven track record of engaging with the open-source community. You understand the nuances of upstreaming and how to navigate community dynamics effectively.

**Operational Empathy:** An understanding of the unique challenges of a global "reboot-limited" production environment. You prioritize stability and have experience with pre-production QA and synthetic workload evaluation.

**Strategic Communication:** The ability to translate complex kernel-level obstacles into actionable business insights for stakeholders across the company.

**Resilience:** You aren't intimidated by the "impossible." Whether it's a non-reproducible race condition or an unwelcoming upstream thread, you lead your team through the challenge with a pragmatic, solution-oriented mindset.

## Compensation

For New York City and California (excluding Bay Area) based hires: Estimated annual salary of $170,000 - $275,000.

For Bay Area based hires: Estimated annual salary of $190,000 - $303,000

This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare’s equity plan.

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