The Role
Develop and maintain runtime products by researching legacy codebases, backporting CVE security patches, building packages across Linux distributions and architectures, and creating automated testing and AI-assisted security workflows. The role requires deep C/C++ systems expertise, build-toolchain archaeology, cross-compilation experience, and strong ownership of correctness. It also includes customer support for compatibility and upgrade issues.
Summary Generated by Built In
About the Role
We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Never-Ending Support (NES) team. This role is specifically focused on developing and proving out new product lines in our runtimes. You will research new potential products to add to our ever expanding product line, produce critical security patches for CVEs in our various runtime products (PHP, Postgres, NGINX, etc.), deliver builds across many operating system distributions, and build the automation systems that make this work scale.
Key Responsibilities
- Research and prove out new NES products: assess an end-of-life project's codebase, build system, and CVE history, then stand up a working, supportable build pipeline for it
- Maintain the existing NES portfolio by analyzing upstream security fixes and backporting CVE patches in C, C++, and other languages to end-of-life versions
- Implement more comprehensive or novel security fixes to end of life technologies
- Read, write, and review CVE backports, reasoning about what a patch might break across versions, platforms, and configurations
- Build and deliver packages across many Linux distributions (RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, Amazon Linux, and others), and add support for new distributions and releases as they ship
- Resurrect and maintain build environments for legacy code: toolchain archaeology, pinning dependencies that no longer resolve, and keeping old compilers and libraries building
- Build and utilize AI-assisted automation for triage, patch analysis, backport drafting, and regression verification, to scale the product securing process
- Build and maintain test harnesses that validate CVE patch correctness and backwards compatibility
- Provide support to customers' engineering teams on compatibility issues and upgrade paths
Required Qualifications
- Strong understanding of language runtimes and server software internals, such as Node.js, PHP, NGINX, or PostgreSQL
- Demonstrated ability to read and reason about unfamiliar low-level C and C++ code: understanding a security patch well enough to reimplement it against a different code baseline. You enjoy working with completely unfamiliar, but significant open source runtimes.
- Experience reviewing security patches for correctness, memory safety, and unintended side effects
- Deep knowledge of Linux packaging and build tooling: autotools, CMake, Make, GCC/Clang, RPM and DEB packaging, and distribution build systems (mock, pbuilder, abuild, or similar)
- Experience building and shipping software across many Linux distributions and versions, and understanding the toolchain, libc, and dependency differences between them well enough to support new distributions as they are released
- Experience with cross-compilation and multiple CPU architectures (x86_64, aarch64, armv7)
- Experience building and debugging complex software from source, including toolchain and build-system archaeology
- Practical experience using LLMs to automate real engineering work, with judgment about where automation helps and where it can't be trusted
- Strong ownership of correctness and quality: rigorous testing, regression coverage, and an instinct for what a patch might break
- Comfortable in a small, high-autonomy team where you help shape the process as much as follow it.
- Ability to take a new product from research to launch
- Comfortable being on support calls with end users of our products, to troubleshoot complex issues that customers have integrating NES into the foundations of their tech stack
- Strong communication skills, to communicate results in early product iterations, or solutions in tier-3 support capacities
Preferred Qualifications
- Background in security research, vulnerability triage, or product security
- Contributions to open source C/C++ projects. High values targets would be PHP, NGINX, PostgreSQL, Node.js, OpenSSL, or the Linux kernel
- Strong grasp of security fundamentals: CVEs, CVSS, common vulnerability classes in C (buffer overflows, use-after-free, integer overflows, format strings, DoS via resource exhaustion), and how to assess exploitability
- Familiarity with container image hardening, SBOMs, artifact signing, and supply chain security
- Experience as either a technical lead or team lead
- Experience running production services on AWS, Azure, and Kubernetes
Skills Required
- Strong understanding of language runtimes and server software internals, including Node.js, PHP, NGINX, or PostgreSQL
- Ability to read and reason about unfamiliar low-level C and C++ code and reimplement security patches across code baselines
- Experience reviewing security patches for correctness, memory safety, and unintended side effects
- Deep knowledge of Linux packaging and build tooling, including autotools, CMake, Make, GCC or Clang, RPM, and DEB packaging
- Experience building and shipping software across multiple Linux distributions and versions
- Understanding of toolchain, libc, and dependency differences across Linux distributions
- Experience with cross-compilation and multiple CPU architectures, including x86_64, aarch64, and armv7
- Experience building and debugging complex software from source, including toolchain and build-system archaeology
- Practical experience using LLMs to automate engineering work with sound judgment about automation limitations
- Experience with rigorous testing, regression coverage, and software correctness
- Ability to work autonomously and help shape processes in a small team
- Ability to take a new product from research through launch
- Comfort participating in customer support calls and troubleshooting complex integration issues
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Background in security research, vulnerability triage, or product security
- Contributions to open source C or C++ projects, especially PHP, NGINX, PostgreSQL, Node.js, OpenSSL, or the Linux kernel
- Knowledge of CVEs, CVSS, common C vulnerability classes, and exploitability assessment
- Familiarity with container image hardening, SBOMs, artifact signing, and software supply chain security
- Experience as a technical lead or team lead
- Experience operating production services on AWS, Azure, and Kubernetes
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The Company
What We Do
HeroDevs is a trusted leader providing secure, never-ending support for deprecated open-source software. Its mission is to keep critical technologies running smoothly, securely, and in compliance long after their official end-of-life. The company offers a platform for engineering and security teams to manage risks associated with unsupported open source through ongoing security patches, compatibility updates, and comprehensive compliance maintenance for various frameworks.
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