Linux kernel engineer David Hildenbrand is reportedly leaving Red Hat after a decade of significant contributions to major areas such as memory management, virtual, and VirtIO. His recent changes to his kernel patch maintainer information, now linking to a kernel.org address instead of his Red Hat affiliation, signal his departure. While Hildenbrand has not yet disclosed his next destination, his extensive involvement in the Linux kernel ecosystem is well documented. His work as a reviewer for the HugeTLB code, s390 KVM code, and memory management reclaim code has been critical in shaping the Linux kernel’s architecture. As an upstream maintainer for several core memory management code areas, including Get User Pages (GUP) and memory advice (MADVISE), Hildenbrand has played a crucial role in recent kernel development. In 2025 alone, he has contributed over one thousand mainline Linux kernel patches, underscoring his ongoing impact on the open-source community. His departure marks another significant loss for Red Hat’s kernel development efforts, though the specifics of his new direction remain unclear.
Currently, Hildenbrand has been employed by Red Hat in Munich, where he worked on QEMU/KVM virtualization, Linux kernel memory management, VirtIO, and related low-level areas. His expertise has been instrumental in advancing Linux’s capabilities in virtualization and memory management. Phoronix reports that his contributions span key areas of the Linux kernel, including kernel samepage merging (KSM), reverse mapping (RMAP), transparent hugepage (THP), and VirtIO memory driver. With his departure, Red Hat faces the challenge of maintaining the momentum in its kernel development, particularly given the extensive impact of Hildenbrand’s work on the core codebase. While the details of his next project or employer remain unknown, his influence on the Linux kernel will undoubtedly continue through his ongoing contributions to the open-source community.