Linux Career Opportunities in 2025: Skills in High Demand
30 comments
·November 20, 2025mixmastamyk
uberduper
It's difficult to quantify the value of "I know the shit out of linux" to a prospective employer when they're looking for cog developer #471.
In my experience it's the network of people you've worked with that know how beneficial you are and want to work with you again (this is key) that will keep you in demand regardless of the market conditions.
esseph
There could be a lot of reasons for that. The market in general is awful for hiring right now. Just broken.
mixmastamyk
Yes, that's what I'm saying. The rise of ATS seems to be a big part of the problem. Don't think I'm even being seen. There's also been an explosion of stacks, and if you didn't work with the ZYZYXX stack for the last five years, no chance, because someone else has.
koakuma-chan
Just lie. They don't know what they're doing.
uberduper
I've made quite a career out of knowing how linux works and not reinventing the wheels it provides. I read man pages. I sometimes run `systemctl list-unit-files` and say, "hmm what is that??" then go find out what it is. I've been at this for decades and curiosity keeps pushing me to learn new things and keep up with recent developments.
gtirloni
That's the way.
therealfiona
What I'd give to have someone who's Linux experience isn't using a Mac and using brew to install stuff.
I'm the only one with formal Linux experience on my team and I'm the only one who doesn't have to look up how to get to the logs...
K8s admin != Linux grey beard. SurprisedPikachu.gif
thaumaturgy
raises hand
Been daily driving desktop Debian for dang-near a decade now (heh). I've also maintained a gradually-evolving app hosting service for clients for even longer, covering all kinds of stuff. Current architecture includes LXC and nginx. And, I've got BSD experience too.
Job market sucks for me too.
elcritch
Oh that's an easy problem to solve, just use: https://docs.brew.sh/Homebrew-on-Linux :p
HumanOstrich
Despite its standard Homebrew warts, I've been using Homebrew on Linux for years now for my dev boxes and it's been great.
It's good for getting the latest versions of packages, both for things that aren't in the distro and even to override distro packages. So far almost everything Just Works alongside the distro packages (at least for Ubuntu LTS).
WD-42
To be fair journalctl practically requires its own book
mixmastamyk
Am available shortly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45801184
cushychicken
And embedded Linux!
I’ve had a hell of a time finding good embedded Linux devs.
I got insanely lucky to hire two this year.
eikenberry
I have been doing backend/infrastructure coding for years and have been thinking about trying embedded work but am unsure how to break into that area. Curious if you (your industry) would be interested in someone with a lot of Linux/systems experience but not in the embedded space?
ab71e5
What are you looking for? Yocto experience? Experience writing drivers? C/Rust/C++? Hardware / FPGA experience as well?
koakuma-chan
Linux is a kernel and has nothing to do with anything. What you really mean is GNU/Linux, the operating system.
elcritch
Unless you're running Alpine Linux or similar of course. Nowadays the GNU tools make up a small (if important) part of a Linux distro. There's also alternatives.
koakuma-chan
Still has nothing to do with Linux. Look at "Skills Employers Seek in 2025." What does Docker or Kubernetes have to do with Linux?
kgwxd
The guy in the photo is clearly qualified. Dual monitors is hard enough on Linux, that man got triple!
andy99
So sick of these “Accept all cookies” / “reject optional cookies” dark patterns, sites that do this should be banned
loloquwowndueo
Yes but :
1- use the consent-o-matic extension, or 2- open in incognito mode, accept whatever, then when closing the session all the cookies they gave you go away.
itomato
ProTip: Raise your rates. The "typical salary ranges" are laughable, even in 2008 Dollars.
tylergetsay
I'm curious if these are somehow informed by real job postings. if so, I agree it's pretty obvious why these are in high demand (of employers).
None of these are in high-demand right now in my experience. Despite being an expert in most of these listed, I haven't even had an interview in a couple of months.
Wish it were as easy as getting some certifications, but I don't think anyone has ever asked for one specifically in my entire career.