Javier Tia

Summary

Senior Systems Engineer with 13+ years of production embedded software experience, specializing in upstream Linux kernel development, Yocto/OpenEmbedded, embedded security (UEFI Secure Boot, OP-TEE), and CI/CD infrastructure for hardware platforms. Active upstream contributor with patch series currently under review on linux-wireless@, linux-bluetooth@, linux-firmware, U-Boot, Yocto and more FLOSS projects. Comfortable working fully remotely across time zones. Open to consulting engagements and full-time remote roles.

Technical Skills

Kernel & firmware: Linux kernel development, DKMS, U-Boot, UEFI/Secure Boot, OP-TEE, device drivers (WiFi/mac80211/cfg80211, Bluetooth/btusb/btmtk, PCIe, camera/libcamera)

Build systems: Yocto/OpenEmbedded (BitBake, kas, meta-arm, meta-openembedded, meta-secure-core), Make, CMake, Meson, Autotools

CI/CD & testing: LAVA, SQUAD, TuxSuite, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions

Languages: C, C++, Go, Python, Shell/Perl

Security: UEFI Secure Boot, measured boot, TPM, sbsign, EFI variable management (libefivar)

Backend: Django, REST APIs, shell automation

Wireless: mac80211, cfg80211, mt76 driver family, btusb/btmtk Bluetooth stack

Platforms: ARM/AArch64/ARMv8, x86-64, RISC-V, QEMU, Raspberry Pi, NXP i.MX, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Xilinx/AMD KV260, Synquacer

Embedded: BSP development, board bring-up, device tree (DTS/DTB), cross-compilation, UART/I2C/SPI, systemd, udev, initramfs

Experience

Linaro — Senior Systems Engineer

Sep 2022 – Mar 2026 | Remote

Linaro is an open-source collaborative engineering organization focused on Arm-based hardware and software. Worked across upstream kernel enablement, embedded security, CI/CD infrastructure, and platform bring-up for ARM-based reference stacks used by Linaro member companies.

Upstream Kernel & Firmware

• Authored 18-patch WiFi 7 series for MediaTek MT7927/MT6639 (Filogic 380) in the mt76/mt7925 driver (linux-wireless@, v4) — community-tested across 10+ hardware platforms with 9 Tested-by tags from ASUS, Lenovo, Foxconn, and AMD
• Authored 8-patch Bluetooth series enabling MT6639 in btusb/btmtk (linux-bluetooth@, v2); companion firmware submitted to linux-firmware
• Authored 3-patch libcamera AGC/AWB fixes for Simple pipeline sensors with >8-bit output (libcamera-devel@, v4) — reviewed by engineers from Red Hat, Collabora, and Ideas on Board
• Maintained Linux kernel stable branches for ARM embedded targets: CVE backports, stability patches, regular release cadence
• Contributed upstream patches to u-boot/u-boot for ARM platform bring-up, Secure Boot chain configuration, and UEFI key management

Embedded Security

• Designed and upstreamed complete UEFI Secure Boot implementation into meta-arm: U-Boot key enrollment, systemd-boot + kernel signing, sbsign BitBake class, OE-QA runtime test cases, GitLab CI — merged after 8 revision cycles (Oct 2024, reviewed by Jon Mason, ARM)
• Authored OP-TEE/optee-client patches: udev-based tee-supplicant activation replacing static dependencies, resolving failures on multi-device /dev/teepriv* platforms (merged 2023)
• Contributed to meta-ledge-secure Yocto security layer: Secure Boot integration, disk encryption, and EFI variable management

CI/CD Infrastructure

• Built GPIT — end-to-end GitLab CI/CD for Yocto Trusted Substrate images with automated LAVA hardware testing, OEQA result parsing, two-pass log analysis, and email reporting across ARM targets (KV260, RockPi4, Synquacer, AVA, genericarm64) — 19 merged MRs
• Built and maintained LAVA-based CI/CD for embedded Linux testing across ARM hardware (Synquacer, RockPi4, KV260, AVA): test plans, capsule update pipelines, image merging scripts, GitLab CI integration — 40+ merged MRs
• Integrated ARM development boards into LAVA, SQUAD, and TuxSuite pipelines, increasing automated hardware test coverage and reducing manual validation cycles
• Built SOAFEE test framework: container engine, k3s, Xen virtualization, OpenAD Kit, and Linux ABI compliance testing with TAP reporting and LAVA integration — 30+ merged MRs

Yocto/OpenEmbedded

• Owned the Yocto/OE build system delivering all software and kernels for ARM-based embedded Linux products — managing layers across meta-openembedded, meta-arm, meta-secure-core, and meta-arm-bsp
• Established reproducible BitBake configurations and sstate-cache strategies, reducing build failures across the team
• Active patch reviewer and contributor across meta-openembedded, meta-arm, and meta-secure-core

Backend & Tooling

• Contributed Django REST API features to ONELab (Linaro’s edge/IoT interoperability testing platform): automated GitLab CI deployment pipelines and shell tooling, reducing manual device onboarding effort
• Integrated EFI variable tooling (rhboot/efivar) into embedded firmware stacks, enabling runtime EFI variable access from Linux user-space on ARM platforms

Hewlett Packard Enterprise / Aruba — Systems Engineer

Mar 2011 – Sep 2022 | Remote

11 years of production embedded software engineering on HPE/Aruba network switches running embedded Linux. Worked across the full firmware stack for high-availability enterprise networking hardware.

• Participated in large-scale re-architecture effort to modularize and modernize HPE/Aruba switch firmware — production-grade embedded Linux across a fleet of enterprise networking devices
• Developed and maintained embedded Linux BSPs for network switch platforms: kernel configuration, driver integration, board bring-up, and system-level testing
• Worked on firmware build systems, CI integration, and release engineering for embedded switch software
• Contributed to cross-functional efforts spanning kernel, user-space, and management plane components in a large, distributed engineering organization

Upstream Contributions

Full list of 200+ merged PRs/MRs: jetm.github.io/blog/projects

Projects & Tooling

mediatek-mt7927-dkms — DKMS package bridging out-of-tree MT7927 WiFi 7 + Bluetooth 5.4 patches to Arch Linux, Debian, and Fedora users while upstream review is in progress. Supports 10+ hardware variants with firmware extraction tooling and an 8-hour stability test suite.

jig — Go TUI for git workflows built with Bubble Tea. Consolidates interactive staging, hunk-level add, diff viewing, commit log browsing, fixup commits, and interactive rebase into one tool. Ships with goreleaser, golangci-lint, and a 90% test coverage threshold.

glpkg — Python CLI for the GitLab Generic Package Registry, published on PyPI as glpkg-cli. Shell completion, GitHub Actions CI/CD, and a comprehensive test suite.

devspec — Spec-driven workflow engine; MCP server with multiple tools, skills, TF-IDF drift detection, and ~1,245 tests.

Technical Writing

Linaro Engineering Blog

• From Replace It with Intel to Upstream: Bringing MediaTek Bluetooth/WiFi 7 to Linux — Mar 2026. MediaTek’s MT7927 WiFi 7 chip shipped on 15+ flagship products from ASUS, Gigabyte, Lenovo, MSI, and TP-Link with zero Linux support. Through community reverse-engineering and 20 upstream kernel patches, full WiFi 7 (2+ Gbps on 6 GHz) and Bluetooth 5.4 now work on every major Linux distribution. Once merged, every distribution gets support automatically - eliminating the maintenance burden of out-of-tree drivers and reducing hardware support risk for silicon vendors and OEMs alike.
• 5 Common Mistakes When Enabling Your Arm Device in the Automated Test Lab — Mar 2026. Bringing up a new hardware platform in an automated test environment is rarely simple. For many engineers working with Arm development boards, the first experience with automated testing infrastructure quickly turns into a debugging session - silent serial consoles, misconfigured USB ports, unexpected voltage levels, and devices that refuse to boot. A real-world debugging journey while enabling a new device on a Linaro Automation Appliance (LAA), used by ONELab, Linaro’s automated testing service for Arm platforms.
• Enabling Standard Linux on Arm: How ONELab Accelerates Interoperability and SystemReady Continuous Compliance — Mar 2026. Most Arm embedded platforms still struggle to boot standard Linux distributions due to fragmented firmware implementations and non-standard boot flows. ONELab by Linaro addresses this by providing fully automated testing infrastructure that validates firmware compliance and OS interoperability on real hardware, aligned with Arm SystemReady requirements. Reduces what traditionally required 12-24 weeks of manual validation to an automated 6-12 week compliance cycle.

Personal Blog — jetm.github.io/blog

In-depth articles on Linux kernel driver development, Yocto, UEFI, and systems engineering. Series covering the 15-month MT7927 upstream journey (4 posts), Intel IPU6 mainline migration, DKMS packaging, and UEFI/QEMU workflows. Articles average 1,000–4,500 words with working code and patch series.