--- title: 'Staff Kernel Security Engineer at Crusoe' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-kernel-security-engineer-crusoe-san-francisco-bkmbhvrqnf16' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-16' --- # Staff Kernel Security Engineer at Crusoe - **Company:** [Crusoe](https://feeny.ai/companies/crusoe) - **Location:** San Francisco, CA / United States - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-06 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/crusoe/7013a589-5163-4f40-96f9-e5e172823990 ## Job description 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 the Role: The Crusoe Cloud Software Development team is seeking a passionate and experienced Staff Software Engineer specializing in Linux Kernel Security. This critical role is essential in strengthening the security posture of our core Linux kernel and operating system components, which underpin our cutting-edge hardware and software solutions for the AI cloud. A deep understanding of Linux kernel internals, security vulnerabilities, mitigation techniques, and secure development practices is paramount for developing reliable, high-assurance systems. This is a full-time position. What You'll Be Working On: - Kernel Hardening & CVE Triage: Implement kernel security enhancements, manage configuration hardening, and triage incoming CVEs to assess severity and exploitability. - Access Control, Boot Security & Guardrails: Enforce mandatory access controls, secure the boot path, and establish CI guardrails and fuzzing coverage to prevent regressions. - Vulnerability Research & Analysis: Research vulnerabilities across kernel, driver, and OS components to build proactive mitigations and backport non-trivial upstream fixes to production. - Secure Development Practices: Establish and advocate for secure coding standards and best practices for kernel-level development. Conduct security-focused code reviews to identify and eliminate potential vulnerabilities early in the development lifecycle. - Security Auditing & Tools: Utilize and develop specialized tools for kernel security auditing, fuzzing, static analysis, and dynamic analysis to uncover hidden vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with security policies. - Incident Response Support: Provide expert support during security incidents involving kernel or OS-level compromises, assisting with root-cause analysis, containment, and recovery efforts. - Performance and Security Balance: Work to ensure that security enhancements do not unduly impact system performance, especially critical for our high-performance AI infrastructure. - First 90 days: Own kernel CVE triage end to end and have shipped at least one backported fix through our full release path. You have an independent read on where our kernel configuration is weakest. - First year: Kernel security response has a defined SLA by severity and we consistently hit it. A hardening baseline is defined, enforced in CI, and rolled out across supported SKUs. Cloud Hypervisor has been audited and the highest-value isolation gaps are closed or scheduled. - Cloud Hypervisor & Isolation: Audit, harden, and reduce privilege across Cloud Hypervisor device models and vhost-user datapaths, contributing upstream security fixes and advancing confidential computing primitives (AMD SEV-SNP, Intel TDX). - Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate closely with other engineering teams (hardware, hypervisor, OS development, cloud infrastructure, and security operations) to integrate security best practices and ensure a comprehensive security strategy across the stack. - Technical Leadership: Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior engineers on kernel security best practices, fostering a culture of security awareness and excellence. - Debugging and Root-Cause Analysis: Debug and root-cause a variety of complex security-related issues at the kernel level. What You'll Bring to the Team: - Linux Kernel Security Expertise: Proven deep knowledge of Linux kernel internals (e.g., memory management, process scheduling, system calls, I/O subsystems) with a strong focus on security aspects. - Vulnerability & Exploitation Knowledge: Solid understanding of common kernel vulnerabilities (e.g., privilege escalation, information disclosure, denial of service) and associated exploitation techniques. - Security Mitigations: Experience with existing Linux kernel security mitigations (e.g., ASLR, DEP/NX, SMEP/SMAP, KASLR, namespaces, cgroups, LSMs like SELinux/AppArmor). - Secure Coding: Strong background in secure coding principles and experience conducting security-focused code reviews, particularly in C. - Debugging & Analysis Tools: Proficiency with kernel debugging tools (e.g., GDB, crash, kgdb) and security analysis tools (e.g., valgrind, address sanitizers, fuzzers). - Hardware Security Concepts: Familiarity with hardware-assisted security features (e.g., Intel SGX, AMD SEV, ARM TrustZone) and their relevance to kernel security. - Education & Experience: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, and a minimum of 5 years of relevant industry experience with at least 3 years focused on low-level operating systems or kernel security. - Safety and Compliance: Must be able to pass a background check. - Company Values: Embody the Company values. - Experience dealing with CVE Remediation and automation - First 90 days: You own kernel CVE triage end to end and have shipped at least one backported fix through our full release path. You have an independent read on where our kernel configuration is weakest. - First year: Kernel security response has a defined SLA by severity and we consistently hit it. A hardening baseline is defined, enforced in CI, and rolled out across supported SKUs. Cloud Hypervisor has been audited and the highest-value isolation gaps are closed or scheduled. Bonus Points - Experience with specific kernel security projects or contributions to open-source kernel security initiatives. - Familiarity with hypervisor security and the interaction between the hypervisor and the guest kernel's security. - Experience with hardware security modules (HSMs) or Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs). - Background in offensive security or penetration testing at the kernel level. Benefits: - Competitive compensation and equity packages - Restricted Stock Units - Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs - Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance - Employer contributions to HSA account - Paid parental leave - Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability - Professional development & tuition reimbursement - Mental health & wellness support - Commuter benefits (parking & transit) - Cell phone stipend - 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary - Volunteer time off - Global travel insurance & emergency assistance - Daily meals allowance - Additional perks & programs specific to location ## Compensation Range Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $215,000 -$260,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicant's 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. ## About Crusoe ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Crusoe is an energy-first AI infrastructure company that designs, builds, and operates hyperscale data centers and a cloud platform purpose-built for artificial intelligence workloads. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series E) - **Headquarters**: Denver, Colorado, USA - **Founded**: 2018 - **Founders**: Chase Lochmiller and Cully Cavness ## Core Business - Primary industry/industries: AI Infrastructure, Cloud Computing, Data Centers, Clean Energy - Target customers: Enterprise AI companies, AI-native startups, research institutions, government agencies (B2B) - **Mission**: "Accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence." ## Products & Services - **Crusoe Cloud**: An AI-optimized cloud platform purpose-built for AI workloads, featuring high-performance NVIDIA and AMD compute, accelerated storage, and optimized RDMA networking. Claims to deploy models up to 20x faster and cut costs by up to 81%. - **Crusoe Managed Inference**: A managed AI inference service built with Crusoe's proprietary MemoryAlloy technology, offering best-in-class speed, throughput, and reliability. Features the Crusoe Intelligence Foundry for model selection and API key management. - **AI Data Center Infrastructure**: Vertically integrated design, build, and operation of hyperscale AI factories (e.g., the 1.2 GW Stargate campus in Abilene, TX). Modular, scalable construction for power-hungry AI workloads. - **Crusoe Managed Kubernetes & Slurm**: Managed orchestration services that eliminate operational overhead for customers. - **Crusoe AutoClusters**: Fault-tolerant, managed cluster services for large-scale AI training. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private company). - **Key Metric**: Raised over $1.8B+ in total funding (Series E in 2024 was $1B+; Series D in 2024 was $600M; Series C in 2021 was $350M). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: NVIDIA, NYDIG, GE Vernova, Redwood Materials, Tallgrass, AMD. The company has also partnered with leading energy and technology firms to power its data centers. - **Growth Signals**: Divested bitcoin mining business to NYDIG in 2023 to focus exclusively on AI infrastructure; broke ground on the 1.2 GW Stargate campus in Abilene, TX; expanded into Europe with a geothermal/hydro-powered deployment in Iceland; announced 1.8 GW Wyoming data center with Tallgrass; acquired GPU memory optimization startup Atero and established a Tel Aviv office. ## Competitive Advantages - **Energy-First Approach**: The company’s core differentiator is its vertical integration starting from energy sourcing. It uses "environmentally aligned power sources" (wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, natural gas with carbon capture) to power its AI factories, including pioneering technology to convert wasted natural gas into energy. - **Vertical Integration**: Controls the entire stack—from finding innovative energy sources to building and managing hyperscale data centers and operating the cloud platform. - **NVIDIA Partnership**: Close partnership with NVIDIA, providing access to the latest and highest-performance GPU hardware for its cloud and infrastructure. - **Proven Performance**: Claims 99.98% uptime, 100% customer satisfaction score, and significant cost/performance advantages (up to 81% cost reduction). ## Strategic Focus - **Massive Infrastructure Expansion**: Aggressively scaling its data center footprint, with major projects in Abilene, Texas (Stargate) and Wyoming (Tallgrass), and expansion into Europe. - **Deepening AI Cloud**: Continuing to build out its Crusoe Cloud platform with managed services (Kubernetes, Slurm, AutoClusters) to make it easier for AI companies to use their infrastructure. - **Responsible AI**: Emphasizing sustainability and responsible AI governance, as evidenced by achieving ISO 42001 certification and publishing an ESG report. - **Acquisition-led Growth**: Acquired Atero (GPU memory optimization) to enhance its core technology stack. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-Driven**: The company is united by a tangible mission: "Accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence." Employees report high levels of engagement (92% proud to work there per internal survey). - **Massive Growth Trajectory**: Crusoe is at the center of the AI infrastructure boom, building some of the world's most powerful AI factories. For job seekers, this means exposure to cutting-edge technology and the opportunity to scale a company from a startup to an industry leader. - **Culture**: The company values "moving fast and making things," continuous learning, and collective genius. It describes itself as an "AI factory company" that values velocity and impact. - **Work Policy**: Hybrid/Office presence required in most roles. Office locations include: Denver (HQ), San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Bellevue, Tulsa, Dublin (Ireland), and Tel Aviv (Israel). - **Benefits**: Competitive compensation & equity, comprehensive health & wellness, mental health resources, retirement plans, paid time off, leave of absence programs, learning & development, volunteer time off, daily meals allowance, and other location-specific perks. - **Engineering Culture**: Strong emphasis on technical excellence, working with large-scale systems, and pioneering new approaches to energy and infrastructure. The company values candidates' "AI fluency" in its hiring process. ## Sources 1. [crusoe.ai](https://www.crusoe.ai/) 2. [crusoe.ai/careers](https://www.crusoe.ai/about/careers) 3. [crusoe.ai/about/culture](https://www.crusoe.ai/about/careers/culture) 4. 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