Principal Software Engineer - C/C++

About the Role

OpenLogic, a Perforce business unit, provides long-term support (LTS) for enterprise Linux distributions - including CentOS 6, 7, and 8 - to customers who depend on stable, security-patched software beyond end-of-life. As a Senior Software Engineer on the CentOS CVE Remediation team, you will own the full lifecycle of CVE fixes: triaging vulnerabilities, backporting upstream patches, rebuilding RPM packages, validating fixes, and delivering hardened packages to production. You will work across a broad range of system packages — kernel, OpenSSL, openldap, libxml2, Ruby, MySQL, and others — making deep C/C++ expertise essential.

Responsibilities

• Triage incoming CVEs using NVD, CVSS/EPSS scores, and CISA KEV data; prioritize backport work by risk severity
• Write and apply C/C++ patches for EOL packages (CentOS 6/7/8) where upstream fixes are unavailable or inapplicable
• Build, test, and sign RPM packages using mock, rpmbuild, and GPG; maintain spec files and package metadata
• Debug regressions and build failures with gdb, strace, and valgrind; resolve symbol, linkage, and ABI issues
• Collaborate with reviewers to meet quality gates; respond to technical review feedback on patch correctness and security impact
• Document remediation decisions, patch rationale, and build reproduction steps in Jira and Confluence
• Contribute to automation improvements (CI pipelines, scripted build environments) to increase team CVE velocity

Requirement

• 12+ years of professional C and C++ development and system admin level experience on Linux systems.
• RPM packaging expertise — Hands-on experience with RPM packaging:
• Writing and maintaining .spec files, understanding of rpm build phases and macros
• Building in isolated environments using mock; managing dist tags and dependencies
• Deep Linux internals – Strong Linux internals knowledge:
• Kernel subsystems (memory management, process scheduling, file systems, networking stack)
• System calls, device drivers, and kernel module development fundamentals
• Package management proficiency with yum/dnf and familiarity with rpm database operations
• Practical debugging skills: gdb, strace, ltrace, valgrind, core dump analysis
• Scripting in Bash and Python for build automation and tooling
• Familiarity with SELinux policy analysis and enforcement modes
• Experience with git and git-lfs for patch management and source control

Nice to Have

• Prior experience backporting security patches for EOL distributions (CentOS, RHEL, Oracle Linux, Rocky, AlmaLinux)
• Knowledge of OpenSSL, libxml2, openldap, or Ruby C extensions at the source level
• Familiarity with CVSS v3/v4 scoring, EPSS, and KEV prioritization workflows
• Experience with virtualization tooling: libvirt, QEMU/KVM, Vagrant, VirtualBox
• CI/CD pipeline experience (Jenkins, GitHub Actions) for automated package builds…