Senior Embedded Linux OS Engineer

Role Description

As a Senior Embedded Linux OS Engineer, you are Nabu Casa's primary embedded Linux engineer within the Hardware Team, responsible for enabling, maintaining, and improving Home Assistant OS support across Nabu Casa hardware products.

Home Assistant OS is an open-source project stewarded by the Open Home Foundation. Nabu Casa develops and ships hardware products that run Home Assistant OS and contributes engineering effort to ensure those devices remain reliable, performant, secure, and well-supported throughout their lifecycle.

Working at the boundary between hardware and software, you help ensure Home Assistant OS runs reliably on Nabu Casa hardware platforms. You collaborate closely with the Hardware Team, Home Assistant OS contributors, and the Open Home Foundation to support existing devices, improve platform reliability, and enable new hardware platforms.

You are the primary technical owner for embedded Linux enablement within the Hardware Team. This includes:

• Buildroot-based platform development
• Board support packages
• Bootloader configuration
• Hardware bring-up
• Platform debugging
• Long-term maintainability

This is a senior, hands-on engineering role requiring deep embedded Linux expertise and the ability to independently drive complex technical work from investigation through implementation with minimal supervision.

This is not a Linux kernel development role. It is an embedded Linux platform engineering role focused on Buildroot-based systems, hardware enablement, operating-system integration, platform reliability, and hardware support.

Qualifications

• Strong embedded Linux experience, including Buildroot, Yocto, or similar embedded operating system environments
• Deep understanding of Linux operating systems, system services, hardware bring-up, and platform reliability
• Experience with bootloaders, partition layouts, OTA update systems, and embedded device lifecycle management
• Comfort working across hardware and software boundaries, including reading hardware schematics and datasheets
• Experience with cross-compilation toolchains and low-level debugging tools such as serial consoles, GDB, strace, JTAG, oscilloscopes, or logic analysers
• Ability to read and write C/C++ for lower-level or driver-related work
• Strong Python skills for automation, tooling, and platform scripting
• Familiarity with security hardening practices for embedded operating systems
• Experience working with Home Assistant OS or similar embedded Linux platforms is a strong plus

Requirements

• Hardware-native mindset — comfortable working directly with physical devices and embedded systems
• High autonomy and ownership — able to independently own complex platform areas end-to-end
• Strong debugging and troubleshooting mindset — able to methodically investigate unfamiliar systems and isolate problems using evidence rather than assumptions
• Comfortable learning unfamiliar systems quickly and moving across multiple technical layers including OS, hardware, drivers, automation, and platform tooling
• Community-minded and collaborative — comfortable contributing in public open-source environments with asynchronous communication and code review workflows
• Clear written communication skills and ability to work effectively in distributed remote teams

Benefits

• Five weeks (twenty-five days) of paid time off
• Fourteen days of paid sick leave if your country/laws treat them as unpaid
• Six weeks of paid and six weeks of unpaid parental leave to be used in the first year after birth
• A budget for your work hardware once you start. After three years, you may keep this equipment for personal use
• An annual smart home budget to ensure you keep up-to-date with the latest smart homes offer
• An annual education budget to help you grow and stay on top of your game
• A yearly performance bonus based on company performance
• A 50% contribution to your internet connection fee at your home workspace
• One day every two weeks to work on your personal projects
• If you are currently working on Home Assistant-related side projects, you can spend work time maintaining them