[Hiring] Kernel / Hypervisor Engineer @Amazon

Role Description

Join us at AWS Lambda in Dublin, Ireland, building Firecracker - the open-source virtual machine monitor (VMM) purpose-built for serverless and container workloads. Firecracker runs at global scale as the foundation of AWS Lambda, Aurora D-SQL, and other AWS services, and is integrated by 10+ external teams as part of their platforms.

We are looking for a Kernel / Hypervisor Engineer who is passionate about low-level systems programming and wants to push the boundaries of virtualization technology. In this role, you will work at the intersection of hardware and software - designing and implementing hypervisor components, device emulation, memory management, and guest-host interfaces in Rust on Linux/KVM. Your work will directly impact the security, performance, and efficiency of compute infrastructure serving millions of customers.

• Design, develop, and maintain hypervisor and VMM components in Rust, including virtual device emulation, memory management, and vCPU scheduling.
• Optimize boot latency, memory footprint, and I/O throughput for ephemeral microVM workloads at global scale.
• Harden the security boundary between guest and host, contributing to threat modeling and implementing isolation mechanisms.
• Contribute to the upstream Linux kernel where needed to support Firecracker's roadmap.
• Mentor and coach junior engineers, drive code quality through reviews, and champion best practices.
• Participate in on-call rotation to ensure operational excellence of Firecracker-based services.

Qualifications

• Experience (non-internship) in professional software development.
• Hands-on experience with low-level systems programming (e.g., kernel, hypervisor, firmware, or embedded systems).
• Proficiency in at least one systems language: C, C++, or Rust.
• Solid understanding of Linux internals (syscalls, memory management, process management).
• Experience with virtualization technologies (KVM, Xen, QEMU, or similar).
• Experience with Rust in production systems.
• Contributions to open-source projects (kernel, hypervisor, or systems tooling).
• Experience with device emulation or virtio.
• Familiarity with hardware-assisted virtualization (Intel VT-x, AMD-V, or Arm virtualization extensions).
• Knowledge of performance profiling and optimization at the systems level (perf, ftrace, eBPF).
• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

Benefits

• Work-life balance.
• Mentorship and training opportunities.
• Challenging assignments.

Company Description

Amazon is an equal opportunities employer. We believe passionately that employing a diverse workforce is central to our success. We make recruiting decisions based on your experience and skills. We value your passion to discover, invent, simplify and build. Protecting your privacy and the security of your data is a longstanding top priority for Amazon.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers.