Kernel Engineer/Hypervisor Admin

Brief Background

The Network and Virtualization Engineer is expected to lead the design, deployment, and ongoing optimization of robust network and virtualization infrastructures. This role is critical in ensuring high availability, performance, and security across all network layers and hypervisor environments—directly supporting the scalability and resilience of core business operations.

What the Role needs to Achieve

• Design, implement, and maintain the company’s network and virtualization infrastructure.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Hypervisor Engineering: Modify, patch, and extend the KVM hypervisorto enhance performance, security, isolation, or feature sets aligned with business and product needs.
• Kernel & OS Customization: Work with Linux kernel modules, OS package management tools(yum, apt, dnf, rpm, deb), and system boot processes to maintain a highly optimized virtual infrastructure.
• Virtualization Stack Expertise: Engineer solutions that span VM image formats(qcow2, vmdk, vhd, ovf, xva), cloud-init integration, and support for high availability and clustering in virtualized environments.
• Networking Integration: Design and implement advanced virtual networking capabilities using Open vSwitch, VXLAN, L2/L3 routing, and SDN Collaborate with infrastructure teams to ensure seamless LAN/WAN/SAN interactions.
• Performance Tuning & Debugging: Analyze hypervisor and kernel-level behavior to troubleshoot complex system issues, apply performance patches, and optimize virtualization throughput and latency.
• Platform Integration: Ensure tight integration of KVM with containers, Kubernetes, and cloud orchestration platformslike OpenStack. Collaborate with DevOps teams using tools like GitLab, Jira, and IaC
• Security & Compliance: Harden the hypervisor and kernel environment, enforce system integrity, and build controls to comply with internal and external security standards.
• Research & Innovation: Explore and implement emerging technologies including AIOps, MLOps, and hardware virtualization acceleration to advance the platform’s capabilities.
• Documentation & Knowledge Sharing: Maintain detailed documentation of kernel modifications, system architecture changes, and testing strategies. Contribute to engineering best practices and mentor peers.

ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS REQUIRED

• Deep experience with Linux kernel development, KVM, and virtualization internals.
• Strong programming skills in C, Python, and Go.
• Experience with hypervisor integration formats(qcow2, vmdk, vhd, xva), cloud-init, and OS image management.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms(AWS, Azure, GCP) and open-source cloud stacks (OpenStack).
• Solid understanding of OSI model, networking protocols, SDN, firewalls, load balancers, and storage protocols(iSCSI, NFS).
• Exposure to DevOps, IaC, CI/CD pipelines, and agile toolchains like GitLab and Jira.
• Working knowledge of clustering, HA, containers, and Kubernetesin a virtualization context.

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a closely related technical field.

EXPERIENCE

• 7+ years of hands-on experience in network administration, network design, and virtualization technologies.