C2 Linux Product Team Lead (AU)

About the role

DroneShield is seeking a Linux Product Team Lead to design, own, and scale the next generation of DroneShield’s Linux‑based operating platforms. This is a hands‑on leadership role for someone who obsesses over building lean, hardened, purpose‑designed Linux systems - the kind that run reliably for years in remote, mission‑critical environments.

You’ll lead a small, deeply technical team responsible for architecting, hardening, and maintaining DroneShield’s Linux distributions across multiple hardware platforms. From first boot to signed field updates, from secure boot chains to reproducible image pipelines, you will set the technical direction and delivery standards that define our Linux platform strategy, with an initial focus on our DroneSentry-C2 Platform.

This is an opportunity to shape the foundational OS layer behind DroneShield’s global product ecosystem. You’ll combine technical leadership, platform engineering expertise, and a security‑first mindset to build reliable, observable, maintainable systems that scale.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations 

• Lead and mentor a high impact Linux engineering team, setting standards and driving technical excellence
• Own the full lifecycle of DroneShield Linux platforms, from hardware bring up to production images and long term support
• Architect and customise Linux distributions optimised for specific hardware, performance requirements, and operational constraints
• Harden the OS end to end: secure boot, TPM integration, immutable rootfs, minimal attack surface, signed updates
• Design and build reliable atomic update mechanisms for both connected and air gapped environments
• Develop automated build pipelines, reproducible build systems, and test harnesses to support scalable delivery
• Build observability into the OS: metrics, structured logs, boot diagnostics, and system level telemetry
• Provide Level 3 support for deep OS, kernel, and system stack issues across development, production, and deployed assets
• Document OS architecture, interfaces, update workflows, and recovery procedures
• Partner closely with product, security, embedded, and platform teams to ensure seamless integration across the stack

Qualifications, Experience and Skills 

• 3+ years leading and mentoring engineers in a Linux, systems, or platform‑focused team
• 8+ years building and operating production Linux systems or appliances (bonus: shipped hardware at scale)
• Deep understanding of Linux internals: kernel configuration, bootloaders, init systems, storage, namespaces, udev
• Strong grounding in OS‑level security: secure boot, TPMs, disk encryption, UKIs, SELinux, seccomp, integrity tooling
• Proficiency in Bash and one additional scripting or compiled language (Python or Go desirable)
• Experience with observability, diagnostics, and system performance tooling
• Solid understanding of networking: routing, DNS, firewalling, VLANs, bonding
• Familiarity with provisioning systems such as PXE, Kickstart/Preseed, cloud‑init, systemd services
• Experience with container and OCI technologies: podman, buildah, Docker, cgroups, overlayfs
• Exposure to image‑based deployment models (e.g., RHEL Image Mode / bootc) is a significant bonus
• A product‑oriented engineering mindset: reproducible builds, versioned configs, automated tests, and artefact‑driven workflows
• Strong collaboration instincts and ability to work across security, product, embedded, and software teams

Note for recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited candidates from external recruiters unless specifically instructed.

#605