Principal Software Engineer

Principal Software Engineer – Red Hat

The Red Hat Engineering team is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join us. In this role you will work with Red Hat products to correct errors and adapt to new environments in conjunction with our Telco 5G Platform Precision Timing team, designing and implementing the container platform for 5G telecommunication networks and contributing to industry‑leading technologies in the Kubernetes and Telecom ecosystem, such as CNCF projects and ORAN.

As part of a geographically distributed team you will collaborate with multiple Red Hat engineering teams and open source communities around the globe.

• Bring Telecom high‑availability and small‑footprint concepts to the Cloud‑Native Network Function (CNF) platform, enabling 5G vRAN and core deployments.
• Perform system‑level engineering and design for performance, including latency‑sensitive workload tuning.
• Define, contribute to, and collaborate on new system architectures.
• Troubleshoot, analyze bug root causes, and provide resolutions.

• Collaborate with engineers and partners to design software within project constraints.
• Work with partners and internal resources to acquire data, analyze requirements, and design/built software.
• Utilize documentation from users and partners to analyze process flows, design improvements, and model/measure changes.
• Coordinate with partners and Red Hat resources to install vertical‑market applications and environments that support partner certification and testing.
• Review design, enhancement proposals, and patches from other team members.

• Play an active role and contribute to open‑source projects and communities (Kubernetes, Red Hat Open Shift, Open vSwitch, Open Virtual Network).
• Publicize the team’s work through blogs, web postings, or conference talks.
• Work across product teams to influence future directions.

• Work with the Quality Engineering (QE) team to ensure effective and complete test coverage.
• Implement unit tests, in‑situ testing, and documentation for the validation of software code.
• Gather data and document performance requirements.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent working experience.
• 7+ years of experience in a Linux environment or a related role.
• Programming experience: strong proficiency in at least one of the following:
  Golang, Rust, Python, or C/C++.
• Linux systems:
  • Experience with Linux system programming in a distributed telecom environment.
  • Good knowledge of Linux kernel internals and architecture, with the ability to work with kernel developers to debug and resolve issues.
  • Experience with multi‑threaded programming and management of shared resources in complex environments.
• General: comfortable working on large multidisciplinary problems and bringing together a diverse set of technical options to a clear path forward; ability to quickly learn new technologies and strong written and verbal communication skills in English.

• Familiarity with the wider Kubernetes and CNCF project ecosystem.
• Experience with virtualization technologies (QEMU, KVM, etc.).
• Experience with container‑related technologies (Docker, cri‑o, etcd).
• Experience with Real‑Time Linux.
• Experience with cloud security and security topics in general.
• Experience with Precision Timing Protocol and/or the Network Timing Protocol.
• Latency‑sensitive workload tuning (IEQ lines, CPU pinning, NUMA affinity, etc.).
• System and performance engineering analysis and a proven track record of unlocking performance in constrained environments.
• Linux networking or SDN related development contribution.
• Leading or contributing to open‑source communities.
• Previous code contributions to or participation in open‑source projects or code samples on Git Hub.

Salary range for this position is $ – $. Actual offer will be based on your qualifications.

Pay Transparency – Red Hat determines compensation based on several factors including but not limited to job location, experience, applicable skills and training, external market value, and internal pay equity. Annual salary is one component of Red Hat’s…