Embedded Linux Security Engineer
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About this role
We’re ALTEN Technology USA, an engineering company helping clients bring groundbreaking ideas to life—from advancing space exploration and life-saving medical devices to building autonomous electric vehicles. With 3,000+ experts across North America, we partner with leading companies in aerospace, medical devices, robotics, automotive, commercial vehicles, EVs, rail, and more.
As part of the global ALTEN Group—57,000+ engineers in 30 countries—we deliver across the entire product development cycle, from consulting to full project outsourcing.
When you join ALTEN Technology USA, you’ll collaborate on some of the world’s toughest engineering challenges, supported by mentorship, career growth opportunities, and comprehensive benefits. We take pride in fostering a culture where employees feel valued, supported, and inspired to grow.
Workplace: On-Site, 5 days
Location: Foster City, CA
We are looking for an Embedded Linux Security Engineer to implement security solution to harden our next-generation embedded Linux platform. In this role, you will bridge the gap between low-level hardware security, kernel hardening, and secure user-space application containment. You will not only design cryptographic defense mechanisms but will also automate security pipelines in CI/CD and partner directly with manufacturing teams to ensure devices are provisioned securely and reliably at scale without production risks.
Responsibilities
• Platform Hardening & Architecture: Design and implement the Hardware Root of Trust and Secure Boot architecture from the first-stage bootloader through the Linux kernel.
• Storage & Integrity Management: Implement dm-verity for cryptographically verified read-only root filesystems and secure data encryption at rest.
• Trusted Execution Environments: Develop, integrate, and maintain a TEE (e.g., OP-TEE) and author Secure/Trusted Applications (TAs).
• Application Sandboxing: Enforce strict user-space isolation and sandboxing strategies using SELinux, AppArmor, cgroups, namespaces, and seccomp filters to protect core systems from untrusted applications.
• DevSecOps Automation: Build automated cryptographic signing pipelines within CI/CD infrastructure (e.g., GitLab CI, GitHub Actions) to securely sign bootloaders, kernels, and OTA payloads using HSMs or secure key vaults.
• Production Provisioning Support: Collaborate with manufacturing teams to write robust scripts and tools for burning permanent hardware configuration fuses (eFuses / OTP memory) securely, designing end-of-line (EOL) test software to validate security features before shipping.
• System Resilience: Architect multi-slot boot recovery layouts (e.g., A/B partitioning) to guarantee fail-safe resilience against failed OTA updates or corrupted boots.
Required Qualifications
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical discipline (or equivalent practical experience).
• Core Experience: 6+ years of professional experience in Embedded Linux development, board bring-up, and Board Support Package (BSP) customization.
• Security Focus: 3+ years of dedicated, hands-on experience deploying device-level security features into physical production hardware.
• Low-Level Systems: Expert knowledge of bootloader configurations (e.g., U-Boot Verified Boot, Barebox) and customizing the Linux kernel storage/security subsystem (dm-crypt, dm-verity).
• Hardware Security Architecture: Deep understanding of modern processor security architectures, specifically ARM TrustZone (ARMv7-A / ARMv8-A, Exception Levels EL1–EL3).
• Sandboxing & Access Controls: Proven track record implementing SELinux/AppArmor policies and utilizing standard Linux containment tools (cgroups, namespaces).
• Build Automation: Proficiency with embedded Linux build automated frameworks like the Yocto Project (BitBake recipe design) or Buildroot.
• Programming: Advanced proficiency in C and strong scripting skills in Python or Bash.
Preferred Qualifications
• Cryptography Expertise: Strong foundational knowledge of symmetric/asymmetric cryptography, hashing algorithms (SHA-256/384), public key infrastructure (PKI), and handling physical Hardware Security Modules (HSMs).
• Manufacturing Scale: Prior experience working with Contract Manufacturers (CMs) or internal factory lines to deploy secure key-injection and fuse-burning protocols.
• Advanced Sandboxing: Experience with embedded container runtimes (e.g., LXC, crun) or lightweight sandboxing frameworks tailored for resource-constrained architectures.
• Anti-Rollback Protection: Experience designing secure versioning and hardware-enforced anti-rollback strategies for OTA updates.
Salary Range
• $120,000 - 150,000
• The actual salary offered is dependent on various factors including, but not limited to, location, the candidate’s combination of job-related knowledge, qualifications, skills, education, training, and experience
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or pregnancy.
Please beware of job seeker scams and see this important notice on our careers page for more information about our recruiting process.
Compliance Notice: Alten USA is a federal contractor subject to the requirements of the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) and Executive Order 11246. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.
Drug Screening Requirement: As a federal contractor, Alten USA maintains a drug-free workplace. All candidates selected for employment will be required to successfully complete a pre-employment drug screening as a condition of hire.
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