Principal Linux Engineer

Title

Principal Linux Engineer

Location

Rockville, MD (hybrid preferred, open to remote for exceptional candidates)

Target Start Date

ASAP

Type

Direct-hire

Salary / Pay Rate

DOE

Why Work Here

This is an established life sciences technology company where IT supports both a 24x7 enterprise environment and the Linux platform built into the products it ships. You would step in as the senior technical authority for Linux, with real ownership over standards, architecture, and how the platform evolves. The role works closely with product engineering, R&D, security, and other infrastructure teams, so your impact reaches well beyond the server room. You would also mentor and develop a team of Linux engineers, making this a strong fit for someone who wants technical leadership without giving up hands-on work. It is a stable, regulated environment that values documentation, quality, and doing things right.

About the Role

The Principal Linux Engineer is the senior technical authority for the enterprise Linux platform and leads Linux support, owning the design, build standards, hardening, and day to day reliability of the Linux server estate. The role also supports the Debian based Linux OS (Debian 13 "trixie” on ARM hardware) embedded in the company's products, working with Product Engineering and R&D on OS image builds, hardening, patching, and field escalations. This engineer sets engineering, scripting, and automation standards across both environments and serves as the final escalation point for complex Linux incidents and root cause analysis. The position manages the Linux support queue and on-call rotation, mentors junior and mid-level engineers, and partners with Security, Network, Database, Applications, and Quality teams to keep systems available, secure, compliant, and audit ready in a 24x7x365 environment. The role reports to the Director of IT.

Responsibilities

• Act as technical lead and final escalation point for Linux support, owning triage, root cause analysis, and permanent corrective action on complex incidents.
• Manage the Linux support queue and on-call rotation in a 24x7x365 environment.
• Own the architecture, build standards, and lifecycle of the Linux estate (RHEL and derivatives), including capacity planning and hardware and OS refresh.
• Define and enforce configuration management and infrastructure as code practices using Ansible, Terraform, Git, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Own engineering and support for the Debian Linux OS that ships with the company's products, including image definition, kernel and device tree configuration, package selection, hardening, and release qualification.
• Work with Product Engineering, R&D, Manufacturing, and Field Service on Raspberry Pi image provisioning at build, unattended upgrade and patch delivery mechanisms, and escalated field issues.
• Lead performance analysis, fault isolation, and reporting on service exceptions across the Linux estate.
• Collaborate with Network, Security, Windows, Database, and Application teams on data center builds, migrations, and cross-platform projects.
• Mentor and develop Linux engineers and administrators through technical direction, training, and workload prioritization.
• Write and maintain SOPs, runbooks, and change and configuration records in line with quality and regulatory requirements, along with other duties as assigned.

Required Skills

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent work experience.
• 10+ years of progressive Linux systems administration and engineering experience in production data center environments, including at least 3 years in a lead, principal, or equivalent senior technical role.
• Experience building, hardening, and supporting an embedded or appliance Linux OS shipped as part of a product, including reproducible image creation (debootstrap, pi-gen, rpi-image-gen, or equivalent), first-boot provisioning, and read-only or A/B root filesystem strategies.
• Hands-on experience supporting databases on Linux, including Oracle, MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB.
• Production data center experience with clustering, high availability, and disaster recovery for Linux workloads.
• Experience in a regulated environment (GxP, ISO, or similar) with change control, documentation, and audit support.
• Experience with cloud hosting, SaaS, and PaaS technologies (AWS preferred).
• Expert knowledge of enterprise Linux administration and internals across RHEL, CentOS/Rocky/AlmaLinux, Debian (including Debian 13 "trixie”), and Ubuntu, including kernel tuning, systemd, LVM, filesystems, networking, and performance diagnostics.
• Linux server security hardening and tuning, including CIS benchmarks, SELinux, and vulnerability remediation.
• Expert knowledge of installing and configuring physical and virtual servers.
• Expert knowledge of patch and errata management at scale (Red Hat Satellite, Foreman, or equivalent), plus backup and restore operations.
• Expert knowledge of configuration management and automation at scale: Ansible (required), Terraform for infrastructure as code provisioning, Git version control, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Hands-on Debian expertise, specifically Debian 13 ( "trixie”) on Raspberry Pi: APT and dpkg package management, .deb packaging, apt pinning and preferences, unattended-upgrades, and local or private APT repository management.
• Working knowledge of ARM64/aarch64 Linux and Raspberry Pi specifics, including boot chain and firmware, device tree overlays, GPIO/I2C/SPI and serial peripherals, SD/eMMC endurance, and thermal and power constraints.
• Familiarity with product OS release qualification, remote upgrade and patch delivery to fielded devices, rollback strategy, and CVE tracking against a shipped software bill of materials.
• Expert Shell and Python scripting for automation, tooling, and diagnostics.
• Strong understanding of DNS, HTTP/S, LDAP, SSH, NFS, Kerberos, SMTP, and SNMP, including Active Directory integration of Linux hosts.
• Understanding of basic networking concepts and the OSI model.
• Familiarity with web technologies (web applications, web services, service oriented architectures) and network and web protocols.
• Able to work standing in data centers, data closets, and other secure environments, and to move or lift up to 50 pounds.

Bonus / Soft Skills

• Red Hat certification (RHCSA/RHCE) strongly preferred.
• Cloud, security, or ITIL certifications.
• VMware vSphere and container platform experience (Docker, Kubernetes/OpenShift).
• Perl scripting.
• Provides day to day guidance and mentoring in a consistently supportive, collaborative way.
• Advanced problem solving and root cause analysis skills, staying composed while leading major incident response.
• Strong verbal and written communication, including briefing senior leadership on risk, incidents, and roadmap.

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