Senior Embedded Linux Engineer

Location: Austin, TX

Department: Software Engineering

JOB SUMMARY

At Apptronik, we are building humanoid robots that require an operating system as sophisticated and resilient as their hardware. As a Senior Embedded Linux Engineer, you will own the entire Linux platform ecosystem. You aren't just "using a build tool"; you are architecting a custom distribution from the ground up to ensure our robots are performant, secure, and field-ready.

Your mission is to manage the full lifecycle of the OS: from factory provisioning and secure imaging to real-time kernel tuning and reliable OTA updates. You will ensure that every cycle of the CPU is optimized for our control loops and that our fleet remains stable.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Custom OS Architecture & Distribution:

• Architect and maintain a custom, production-grade Linux distribution using Yocto, Buildroot, or an equivalent professional build system.
• Demonstrate complete ownership of the OS layers, managing the relationship between the bootloader, kernel, board support packages (BSPs), and user-space libraries.
• Develop and maintain a highly repeatable and well-documented build process that serves as the single source of truth for all robot compute modules.

Hardware Enablement & Performance Optimization:

• Perform low-level kernel configuration and tuning to meet the strict latency requirements of humanoid robotics.
• Implement core isolation and process priority optimization to ensure critical control loops have deterministic access to resources.
• Optimize the OS footprint and resource utilization (CPU, memory, and I/O) to maximize the efficiency of our Nvidia Jetson (Jetpack) and AMD64 platforms.
• Integrate and debug hardware drivers for peripherals, including Bluetooth (BlueZ), Wi-Fi, and specialized robotics sensors.

Platform Resilience, Provisioning & Updates:

• Factory & Provisioning: Architect the workflows for initial device provisioning, including secure boot initialization, disk partitioning, and factory imaging processes.
• OTA Strategy: Own the end-to-end Over-the-Air (OTA) update architecture (A/B atomic updates) using frameworks like Mender, RAUC, or SWUpdate.
• System Stability: Implement OverlayFS or similar union-mount strategies to create a resilient, "unbreakable" system that supports read-only roots and safe factory resets.

Platform Security & Hardening

• Hardware Root of Trust & Secure Boot: Architect and implement end-to-end Secure Boot chains (from BootROM to Kernel) using TPM 2.0 or Secure Enclaves to ensure only authenticated firmware and OS images execute on the robot.
• System Hardening & Isolation: Implement Linux Security Modules (LSMs) such as SELinux or AppArmor to enforce mandatory access controls; utilize cgroups and namespaces to isolate critical robotics processes from non-critical telemetry.
• Cryptographic Infrastructure: Manage the lifecycle of device identity and cryptographic keys; oversee disk encryption (dm-crypt/LUKS)

Infrastructure & Tooling:

• Own the CI/CD pipeline for OS image generation, ensuring that builds are automated, tested, and traceable.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation for the platform architecture, build environment, and flashing procedures.
• Develop specialized diagnostic tools (Python/Bash) for system monitoring and field troubleshooting.

SKILLS AND REQUIREMENTS

• OS Construction: Proven ability to build a custom Linux distribution from scratch. You must understand how to manipulate every layer of the rootfs and toolchain.
• Build System: Experience Yocto/OpenEmbedded, Buildroot, or equivalent professional-grade embedded build environments.
• Kernel & Performance Tuning: Experience with PREEMPT_RT, core isolation (isolcpus), and tuning Linux for real-time robotics or industrial control.
• Nvidia Ecosystem: Deep familiarity with Nvidia Jetson hardware, including L4T, Jetpack SDK, and flashing utilities.
• Resiliency Engineering: Hands-on experience with OverlayFS, partition management, and fail-safe OTA update mechanisms.
• Security Engineering: Hands-on experience with LUKS disk encryption, TPM 2.0 integration, and managing PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) for embedded devices.
• Hardware Interfacing: Experience debugging hardware protocols (I2C, SPI, UART, USB) and wireless stacks (Bluetooth/BlueZ).
• Documentation & Process: A disciplined approach to documentation and creating repeatable engineering processes.

Preferred (Nice to Have):

• Experience with "Modern DevOps" (Containerized build environments, GitLab CI, or automated hardware-in-the-loop testing).
• Knowledge of Secure Boot, disk encryption, and TPM integration.
• Knowledge of real time operating systems
• Programming experience in C++ and Python.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of experience in Embedded Linux or Systems Engineering.
• Demonstrated experience shipping and maintaining a custom Linux OS on high-complexity physical hardware.