Principal Software Engineer - Linux Kernel, Bootloader & Security

About the role

NXP is looking for a Principal Software Engineer in Noida, within its Platform / Systems / Security Engineering team. The role combines deep systems expertise with security-first design, leading architecture and development across Linux kernel, boot loader and user-space middleware to build secure, reliable and performant platforms.

Key responsibilities

• Design and implement security features in the boot loader (secure boot, measured boot, chain of trust).
• Design and implement security features in Linux kernel features such as drivers, filesystems, networking stack and security modules.
• Build and optimize user-space middleware (IPC frameworks, OpenSSL, DPDK) and integrate security protocols (TLS 1.3, DTLS, IPsec, SSH) and hardware-backed key management.
• Drive threat modeling, secure design reviews and code audits (ASLR, stack canaries, SELinux/AppArmor).
• Lead performance and reliability engineering, including profiling, tracing (ftrace, eBPF, perf), memory safety and resource efficiency.
• Define platform CI/CD for low-level software (artifact signing, SBOMs, reproducible builds, Yocto/Buildroot/DEB/RPM pipelines).
• Mentor engineers, guide technical roadmaps and make build/buy/OSS decisions.
• Collaborate with Design, IP, DevOps, product and QA teams.

Required profile

• 10+ years of experience in systems/embedded/platform engineering, including technical leadership at team or organization scale.
• Demonstrated depth in Linux kernel internals (drivers, MM, scheduler, net, filesystems, security modules, eBPF).
• Hands-on boot loader development (U-Boot, GRUB, secure boot, measured boot).
• Experience building user-space middleware (IPC, systemd, observability/logging, configuration frameworks).
• Proven ownership of architecture documents, RFCs and production-quality platform software.

Required skills

• C/C++ for systems-level development; Rust is a plus.
• Security protocols and cryptography (TLS/IPsec, X.509/PKI, HSM/TPM, attestation).
• Linux build systems (Yocto/OpenEmbedded, Buildroot) and debugging tools (kgdb, crash, perf, ftrace, gdb, BPF tools).
• Nice to have: ARM TrustZone, OP-TEE, UEFI, DPDK, container security, FIPS 140-3, Common Criteria, ISO 27001/21434, AUTOSAR, IEC 62443, Python/Bash, Bazel/CMake/Meson, GitHub Actions/Jenkins/Buildkite, eBPF tracing, LTTng, SoC bring-up and BSP work.