Audio Consultant Engineer - Linux Audio Stack (Remote/Anywhere)
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What You'll Actually Do
Upstream & Community Participation: Contribute to and collaborate with WirePlumber, PipeWire, and ALSA upstream communities
Real-World Impact: Design, integrate, and ship embedded Linux audio systems that work reliably in real-world products
Deep Technical Work: Implement and debug PipeWire + WirePlumber stacks, including ALSA, DSPs, and system-level interactions
Customer Collaboration: Work directly with customer teams to translate requirements into robust audio architectures and solutions
Breadth When Needed: Support adjacent areas like Bluetooth audio and Linux audio tooling when required (pw-cli, pw-top, alsa-utils, tracing frameworks) to diagnose and resolve issues efficiently
Be a Technical Advisor: Explain complex audio architecture decisions to product teams, provide honest assessments of what is and isn't possible and build trust through transparent communication
What We're Looking For
Required:
Strong hands-on experience with the Linux audio stack (PipeWire, WirePlumber, ALSA)
Strong proficiency in C and systems-level programming
Solid understanding of core audio concepts (latency, formats, synchronization, buffering, resampling)
Proven ability to debug complex issues across multiple layers of a Linux system
Comfortable working directly with customers in a consulting or support capacity
Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
Nice to Have:
Experience with ALSA kernel driver development
Familiarity with Rust
Exposure to Bluetooth audio (A2DP, HFP, LE Audio)
Basic understanding of DSP concepts, such as signal flow, filtering, and common processing blocks (e.g. echo cancellation, noise suppression, beamforming)
Contributions to relevant open-source projects
Experience with embedded or real-time Linux systems
What We Offer
Compensation & Benefits
We offer a competitive benefits package tailored to each country in which we have employees, plus a core global benefit offering accessible to all Collaborans. Our core benefits include:
Competitive salary based on experience and location
Office setup budget
Sabbatical/Retention of Services - after five years of continuous service
Co-working policy - support for working outside home
Wellness assessments - biannual wellbeing assessments with a trained mental health specialist
Conference attendance - we cover expenses and encourage speaking opportunities
Open source time - contribute to projects you care about
Work Environment
Fully remote - work where you’re most productive
Global team - engineers across Europe, Americas and Asia
No on-call rotations - this isn't support work
Sustainable pace - we're here for the long term
Flexible hours - manage your own schedule
Growth & Impact
Upstream contributions - your work shapes Linux, not just client products
Technical leadership track - path to principal engineer, subsystem expertise or technical architecture roles
Consulting track - develop deeper client relationships, lead customer engagements or shape service offerings
Mentorship opportunities - both receiving and providing guidance
Conference speaking - we support presentation submissions and provide coaching
Recognition - your contributions are public, building your professional reputation
Culture & Values
Upstream first - we believe the best solutions benefit everyone
Transparency - open discussion about technical decisions, business constraints and project challenges
Pragmatism - perfect is the enemy of good; we ship quality code that solves real problems
Respect for expertise - we trust engineers to make technical decisions
Collaborative - we succeed by working together, internally and with the community
Sustainable pace - we're here for the marathon, not the sprint
Our Interview Process
We respect your time and provide a clear, structured process:
Application Review (within 2 weeks) - we look at your code and contributions
Initial Chat (30 min) - casual conversation about your experience and our work
Technical Interview (2 - 3h)
Technical Deep-Dive - discuss kernel architecture, past debugging challenges and how you approach problem-solving (no whiteboard coding)
Code Review Session - review real patches together, discuss trade-offs
Client Scenario Discussion - talk through a realistic customer situation: balancing technical debt, timeline pressure and upstream goals (we want to see your thought process, not a "right answer")
Chief Operating Officer (60 min) - meet the Chief Operating Officer, ask about day-to-day work and how Collabora works, discuss compensation and benefits.
Offer (within 1 week of final interview)
Total timeline: 3-4 weeks from application to offer
We provide feedback at every stage, and you'll always know where you stand.
Collabora's Commitment
We're committed to building a diverse team and inclusive environment. We encourage applications from people underrepresented in tech.
We evaluate candidates based on skills and contributions, not pedigree. If you're unsure whether you qualify, apply anyway - imposter syndrome is real and you might be exactly who we're looking for.
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