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Senior Linux Platform Engineer (€200K+)

The role: Extend, maintain, and deeply customize Warmwind's internal Linux distribution. Modify large codebases (Chromium, Sway). Performance profiling. Open-source collaboration. This is a senior systems engineering role with deep Linux kernel and Wayland expertise.

Requirements → Study Map

Must-have → Where to study

Requirement Article
Linux desktop internals (Wayland, D-Bus, kernel) Wayland deep dive, Kernel graphics, D-Bus & systemd
5+ years C and/or C++ Systems programming
Docker, cgroups, namespaces Containers
Performance optimization Performance profiling
Security & isolation (kernel hardening, seccomp, Wayland sandboxing) Security
English fluency You've got this

Nice-to-have → Where to study

Requirement Article
Chromium customization / kiosk browsers Chromium
Immutable OS paradigms, reproducible builds Immutable OS
VNC/RFB protocol optimization VNC streaming, VNC optimization
Graphics programming (OpenGL, Vulkan, GPU drivers) Kernel graphics
Rust Wayland compositors (Smithay, COSMIC) Smithay & Rust Compositors

Responsibilities (from posting)

  • Extend, maintain, and deeply customize our internal Linux distribution (window manager, web browser, init systems, containers, seccomp, Linux kernel, operating system updates)
  • Systems programming in C/C++, patching large codebases (Chromium, Sway)
  • Performance profiling (perf, bpftrace, valgrind, flamegraphs)
  • Open-source collaboration, upstream contributions, public code review

Tech Stack

C C++ Rust Debian Chromium Sway Wayland WayVNC

Key Interview Talking Points

  1. You understand their compositor stack: Sway (wlroots) → WayVNC → browser. You can explain frame capture, encoding, and streaming.

  2. Wayland security is a feature, not a limitation: Their AI agents need isolation. Wayland prevents cross-client snooping by design. Combined with namespaces and seccomp, they get defense-in-depth.

  3. Chromium is the biggest codebase they patch: Understanding its multi-process architecture (browser, renderer, GPU processes) and sandbox model (seccomp-bpf) shows you can work at scale.

  4. Immutable OS for their containers: Each user session boots a read-only rootfs with overlay for writes. Understanding OSTree, debootstrap, or Nix patterns shows you can build this.

  5. perf/bpftrace for compositor latency: Measuring frame timing, input-to-display latency, and GPU utilization is critical for a responsive remote desktop experience.

Chapters

# Article What you'll learn
1 Wayland Deep Dive Sway/wlroots internals, compositor development, xdg-shell
2 Kernel Graphics DRM/KMS, GBM, EGL, dma-buf, frame lifecycle
3 Chromium Customization Kiosk mode, build system, embedding, sandbox
4 Security & Sandboxing seccomp-bpf, namespaces, capabilities, kernel hardening
5 Performance Profiling perf, bpftrace, flamegraphs, valgrind, GPU profiling
6 Immutable OS OSTree, reproducible builds, minimal distros
7 Systems Programming C/C++/Rust patterns for OS work
8 Smithay & Rust Compositors Smithay architecture, calloop, COSMIC, niri, Rust ownership for Wayland
9 Wayland Protocols Deep Dive ext-image-copy-capture, virtual input, output management, explicit sync, security context
10 D-Bus & systemd D-Bus architecture, busctl, logind API, socket activation, session targets
11 VNC Optimization RFB encodings, WayVNC pipeline, frame diffing, H.264, latency measurement
12 Open Source Contributing wlroots/Sway PRs, Chromium Gerrit/CQ, commit messages, fork maintenance

Also read the common core for company context.