Principal Linux Engineer
Location: Bengaluru – Work from Office (5 days a week)
Start Date: Immediate
About Zeno An unprecedented energy transition has begun. To meet 2040 net zero goals, over 2 billion electric two-wheelers must be sold and $11 trillion in fuel consumption replaced. Zeno is building a tech platform to electrify this two-wheeler market, which is currently responsible for more than 4% of the world's GHG emissions. Our mission is to accelerate the energy transition and democratize its benefits across Africa, India, and Latin America.
The Role Zeno is seeking a Principal Linux Engineer (10–15 years of experience) with deep expertise in Linux system engineering, microservices architecture, and cloud infrastructure. This role is central to developing the software platform that powers Zeno's connected energy devices and cloud connectivity infrastructure. You will architect, build, and maintain robust, scalable solutions, from the embedded hardware in our edge devices to the services running in the cloud. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver secure and scalable solutions for the next generation of electric mobility.
What You'll Do
- Platform Development: Design, build, and maintain a Debian-based Linux platform for our ARM and x86-based connected hardware, utilizing Docker for containerized microservices.
- Application & Service Development: Develop high-performance services using Python 3.12 with asyncio and C for system-level and performance-critical components. Implement on-device user interfaces and media pipelines using GStreamer.
- System Integration & Networking: Integrate and manage communication between services and hardware using protocols like nanomsg, websockets, CAN, and RS485. Maintain secure VPN/mesh overlay networking for remote device connectivity and manage cellular/4G connectivity for field-deployed hardware.
- Cloud & DevOps: Develop and maintain build systems and release pipelines for deploying versioned software to a distributed fleet of devices. Deploy and manage services on cloud platforms. Configure and maintain Debian-based server instances.
- Agentic Tooling & Automation: Design and build custom LLM agent skills and shared automation libraries that give agents safe, permissioned (often read-only or explicitly gated) access to build, deploy, and diagnostic systems — turning operational knowledge into executable, source-anchored tooling for build/release workflows, fleet diagnostics, and production investigation.
- Database Management: Implement and manage on-device and cloud-based databases using SQLite.
- Performance Optimization: Ensure low-latency, high-reliability performance of the entire platform, from embedded devices to the cloud, under real-world conditions.
- Debugging & Testing: Troubleshoot complex issues across the stack, including application logic, container orchestration, networking, and hardware-software interactions.
What You Bring
- Experience: 10-15 years of experience in Linux systems engineering, platform development, or a similar role.
- Programming Expertise: Strong proficiency in Python (3.12, asyncio) and C for system-level interaction and performance-critical code.
- Linux Systems: Deep experience with Debian-based systems for embedded and server environments. Strong skills in Linux system engineering and administration.
- Architecture & DevOps: Proven experience with microservices architecture, including building and maintaining build/release systems for embedded or fleet-deployed software.
- Networking & Protocols: Solid understanding of hardware interfaces and messaging protocols like CAN, RS485, nanomsg, and websockets, along with VPN/mesh overlay networking and cellular/4G connectivity for remote, field-deployed devices.
- Cloud Infrastructure: Extensive hands-on experience with AWS is required. Familiarity with other cloud platforms (e.g., GCP, Azure, Digital Ocean) is a plus.
- Modern Tooling: Proficiency in using LLM agents for development to accelerate coding, debugging, and documentation including hands-on experience building and maintaining custom agent skills/tools, shared automation libraries, and safety-gated interfaces (read-only by default, explicit escalation for anything destructive) that let agents operate reliably against production systems.
- Bonus Skills: Familiarity with GStreamer-based media pipelines, experience with RTOS like Zephyr on STM32 microcontrollers, and/or containerization experience (Docker, Kubernetes) are all strong advantages.
- Mindset: A strong problem-solving mindset with the ability to thrive in a fast-paced startup environment, including occasional flexibility to support live, fielded hardware outside standard hours.
- Location: Based in Bengaluru with the ability to work full-time from the office.
Benefits
- Competitive salary based on experience.
- Company-sponsored healthcare plan.
- Opportunity to build core technology at the heart of the EV revolution.
- Join a global team of engineers, operators, and entrepreneurs driving the trillion-dollar transition of two-wheelers to electric.
