Lead Principal Systems Software Engineer

We are responsible for the Virtual Machine Instance platforms within OCI Compute. We deliver solutions for general-purpose, confidential, and specialized computing workloads across both x86 and ARM architectures. Our team owns the full lifecycle — from launching new VM offerings to maintaining and optimizing production systems — enabling OCI to meet the evolving needs of enterprise and cloud-native customers. We are continually pushing the boundaries of virtualization technology to fulfill our mission of providing customers with highly performant, always-available, and elastic virtual machines.

Responsibilities

Role Summary:
As a Lead Principal Member of Technical Staff, you will lead software development efforts for key features within Oracle Compute's service offerings. This role combines deep hands-on engineering expertise with technical leadership, focusing on the design, development, and operation of large-scale, highly available cloud services. The ideal candidate will mentor team members, drive high-priority initiatives, and contribute to the definition of engineering standards and best practices across the organization.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the software design and development for major components of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's Virtual Machine platform, building new solutions across the virtualization software stack.
• Drive operational excellence by defining and applying best practices to improve the quality, reliability, and performance of the hypervisor and virtual machine platform.
• Perform deep dives across the stack — from low-level Linux systems to high-level distributed system interactions — to identify root causes and ensure system resilience and fault tolerance.

Basic Qualifications:

• 10+ years of software development experience in system-level engineering.
• 5+ years of experience with OS kernel internals (e.g., memory management, device drivers, or kernel subsystems).
• 5+ years of experience with virtualization technologies (e.g., QEMU/KVM, Hyper-V, ESX).
• Proficiency in at least two of the following programming languages: C, C++, Rust, Java, or C#.
• Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and operating systems.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with public cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, OCI, GCP).
• Experience with Quality Assurance for cloud infrastructure.
• Experience with GPU VMs.
• Experience with SmartNICs, SR-IOV/VFIO, and live migration technologies.
• Experience with TPM and confidential computing.
• Experience with system performance analysis and tuning.
• Master’s degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.

About the company

Only Oracle brings together the data, infrastructure, applications, and expertise to power everything from industry innovations to life-saving care. And with AI embedded across our products and services, we help customers turn that promise into a better future for all. Discover your potential at a company leading the way in AI and cloud solutions that impact billions of lives.

True innovation starts when everyone is empowered to contribute. That’s why we’re committed to growing a workforce that promotes opportunities for all with competitive benefits that support our people with flexible medical, life insurance, and retirement options. We also encourage employees to give back to their communities through our volunteer programs.

We’re committed to including people with disabilities at all stages of the employment process. If you require accessibility assistance or accommodation for a disability at any point, let us know by emailing accommodation-request_mb@oracle.com or by calling 1-888-404-2494 in the United States.

Oracle is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans’ status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Oracle will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to applicable law.