Kernel Developer Career in 2025

TL;DR: I'd appreciate the advice of any who have done kernel or similar development in the past. How difficult was it for you to secure a junior kernel dev position? Is it likely one needs to toil away in obscurity for years until someone finally offers you a position? Anyone willing to provide kernel career guidance now and then?

----------------------- I'm a Linux Kernel Mentorship Program (sponsored by the Linux Foundation) graduate wondering for the nth time whether I should continue in this direction or not. Maybe I should switch to contributing to some interesting Rust projects like Zed, Leptos, Bevy, etc., and come away with some skills in a modern language, if nothing else.

It's interesting to contribute to the kernel but it feels like I'm just toiling away in the void, that this could only be a hobby. I'm not sure if I'm any closer to doing this professionally, after getting a handful of valid but seemingly insignificant patches accepted. I know the alternatives - embedded etc. - but there are hardly any such employers around me. Even if I were to get some significant patches accepted, I'm not sure how I could turn that into a job offer.

Thanks for reading