Epic Games Wants a Senior Engineer to Champion Linux Anti-Cheat

Epic Games is hiring a Senior Game Security Engineer to join its Anti-Cheat team, and the role’s published mandate includes a single sentence that has Linux gamers paying attention: the hire will “Champion Linux anti-cheat capabilities for Epic.” The job, listed on the Epic Games careers site under requisition R27345, also asks for “Linux and Windows OS internals” knowledge, the kind of work that has been missing from EAC’s Linux support since Epic first turned it on in 2021. The posting is the first explicit signal from Epic that the company is investing dedicated engineering time in EAC’s Linux support beyond the 2021 user-space implementation.

The listing lands against a year of erosion for Linux anti-cheat as a viable gaming platform. Apex Legends and Rust both walked away from Linux, citing cheat pressure, and Embark Studios’ Arc Raiders is testing a kernel-level anti-cheat layered on top of EAC. Valve’s new Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR headset, and Steam Controller all run SteamOS, and Linux’s share of Steam usage sits around 3%. The new role is one engineer, inside a company whose CEO has set a user-count bar that Linux has not yet cleared.

What the Job Listing Asks For

The Senior Game Security Engineer role, listed on the company’s live Senior Game Security Engineer posting, joins Epic’s Anti-Cheat team. The job description frames the work as protecting “the game instances of millions of players per day” and writing code in “an extremely unique and fast-paced environment to counteract cheats while minimizing invasiveness.” The role is senior, security-focused, and engineering in nature.

The role’s published responsibilities run five lines long. The first is the direct line: “Champion Linux anti-cheat capabilities for Epic.” The second pairs that mandate with deep operating-system-internals work, the kind of engineering the existing EAC-on-Linux implementation has not done. The other three are the standard anti-cheat engineering asks.

The “what we’re looking for” section sets a senior-engineer bar. C/C++ in a security environment, security practices on both Linux and Windows, x86-64 reverse engineering, multiplayer architecture experience, data analytics at scale, and code obfuscation are the standard asks. The Linux-specific requirement, deep knowledge of Linux and Windows OS internals, is what couples the role to the in-kernel work the existing EAC implementation does not do.

• Apply deep knowledge of operating system internals to detect and prevent the latest cheating techniques
• Champion Linux anti-cheat capabilities for Epic
• Reverse engineer cheats and other malicious software
• Actively seek out the next opportunity to make an improvement
• Communicate regularly with internal and external game developers to meet their unique needs
• Build a strong overall understanding of our game security systems
• Work closely with anti-cheat data analysts to quickly iterate on new techniques developers

EAC on Linux Has Existed Since 2021, but the Kernel Gap Never Closed

On September 23, 2021, Epic Online Services announced that Easy Anti-Cheat would support Linux, Mac, and the then-upcoming Steam Deck, including the Wine and Proton compatibility layers. The post described the change as simple for developers: starting with the latest SDK release, “developers can activate anti-cheat support for Linux via Wine or Proton with just a few clicks in the Epic Online Services Developer Portal,” per the September 2021 Epic Online Services announcement. The toggle has been live since 2021. Fortnite, Valorant, PUBG, and Destiny 2 are among the EAC-protected titles that have not enabled it.

The reason is technical and well documented. On Windows, EAC loads a driver into the Windows kernel and inspects the system at the deepest level. On Linux, EAC ships as a user-space binary that runs alongside the game and inspects its memory space.

That is the gap Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has cited, repeatedly, as the reason Fortnite stays off Linux. In February 2022, after the Steam Deck launch, he posted on X that Epic “don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.” The Linux kernel is publicly auditable, and a determined cheater can compile a custom kernel that blinds a kernel-mode anti-cheat module. Epic would have to lock down SteamOS, or trust that the user base is small enough to ignore, to ship an EAC that runs in the kernel.

As of late 2024, that position had not moved materially. The Verge reported that Sweeney told the outlet he could “possibly justify putting Fortnite on the Steam Deck if it had tens of millions of users there.” The bar is set in users, not engineering effort, and Linux has not cleared it.

We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, posted the above on X in February 2022, addressing the same open-kernel problem the new Senior Game Security Engineer role would have to engage with. The bar Sweeney has set is in users, not engineering effort.

A Year of Linux Anti-Cheat Pressure

The new listing lands at the end of a year in which several major multiplayer publishers tightened their grip on Linux. Electronic Arts blocked Linux access to Apex Legends in October 2024, citing “growing” Linux cheat rates that demanded an “outsized level of focus and attention from the team for a relatively small platform.” Riot’s director of anti-cheat for Valorant, Phillip Koskinas, made a similar point to The Verge. On Linux, “you can freely manipulate the kernel,” and a “purpose-built” cheating distribution would be devastating, Koskinas said.

Facepunch’s Alistair McFarlane, who runs anti-cheat on Rust, was more pointed. “If a game supports Proton or Linux, they’re not serious about anti-cheat,” he wrote on Reddit, citing a Linux user base below .01% of Rust’s players. Embark Studios’ Arc Raiders, in a May 7, 2026 developer update titled “Ensuring Fair Play,” said the studio is testing a new kernel-level anti-cheat solution layered on top of EAC, without ever using the word Linux.

For Epic, this is the operating environment for EAC on Linux in mid-2026: a user-space product that several large publishers are declining to enable, an in-kernel approach the open-source kernel resists, and a competitive set of third-party anti-cheats the company is being measured against. The Senior Game Security Engineer posting is the first concrete staffing response from Epic. It does not close any of those gaps by itself. The full thread on what Arc Raiders’ test means for Linux players is laid out in our earlier Arc Raiders kernel anti-cheat analysis.

When we stopped supporting Linux, users made up less than .01% of the total player base, even if that number has doubled, or tripled, it’s not worth it.

Alistair McFarlane of Facepunch Studios, which develops Rust, wrote the above on Reddit in late 2025, and his reasoning has not changed since. The Arc Raiders test, in a May 7, 2026 developer update, layered a new kernel-level anti-cheat on top of EAC without using the word Linux.

Valve’s New Hardware Is the Backdrop

Valve has introduced a new Steam Machine, a Steam Frame VR headset, and a redesigned Steam Controller. All run SteamOS, which is built on the Linux kernel. Valve has said it hopes the new hardware will push game developers to “properly support anti-cheat on Linux.”

Linux’s share of Steam usage sits around 3%, per the Steam hardware survey. Sweeney’s “tens of millions of users” bar is well above that. The Epic job posting is one engineer working toward a goal whose measure is set in users, not in lines of code. The Steam Machine’s commercial success, still unproven, would be the variable that moves the bar.

The Limits of a Single Hire

The posting does not say Epic will ship an in-kernel EAC. It does not say Fortnite is coming to Linux. It does not commit to closing the gap publishers like EA and Bungie have cited when they pulled support.

What it does signal is the first time Epic has allocated a senior-level headcount to making EAC’s Linux support work in the open-kernel environment, beyond the 2021 user-space implementation. The role will join an anti-cheat team whose existing work the listing describes as protecting “the game instances of millions of players per day.” The new hire will be measured against the same internal bar. The in-kernel work Epic describes in the requirements may or may not produce something the largest publishers will turn on.

For Linux gamers, the bar is what Epic’s largest customers will do with the new hire’s work. The 2021 toggle exists, and most of the biggest EAC titles do not use it. Closing that gap is the in-kernel work, and a single hire does not finish that work.

The job listing is a real signal. It is also a single hire inside a company whose CEO has set a user-count bar that Linux has not yet met. The bar, the kernel, and the publishers are the three things a “Linux anti-cheat champion” would have to move. The role is one engineer; the kernel is open source; the user count is what Sweeney has said it has to be.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Epic Games bringing Easy Anti-Cheat to Linux?

Easy Anti-Cheat has supported Linux since September 2021, including via Wine and Proton, and the new Senior Game Security Engineer posting is the first signal that Epic is investing dedicated engineering time in that support going forward. The listing does not commit to a specific change or release date.

Why does EAC on Linux run in user-space mode?

On Linux, EAC runs as a user-space binary that inspects a game’s memory rather than loading a driver into the Linux kernel, the deepest layer of the operating system. The Linux kernel is open source, which means a determined cheater can compile a custom kernel that bypasses a kernel-mode anti-cheat module. User-space is the compromise that ships.

Will Fortnite ever come to Linux?

Epic has not said it will. CEO Tim Sweeney told The Verge in late 2024 that putting Fortnite on the Steam Deck would need tens of millions of users there to justify the cheat risk. Linux’s share of Steam usage sits around 3%, and the new hire is one engineer on a team that already protects millions of daily players.

What is kernel-level anti-cheat?

Kernel-level anti-cheat loads a driver into the operating system kernel, the deepest layer of the OS, and inspects the entire system for tampering. On Windows, EAC and BattlEye run this way. On Linux, they run in user space, which leaves the kernel unprotected and is the technical reason major publishers have not enabled the Linux EAC toggle for their biggest competitive titles.

How many people game on Linux?

Linux accounts for roughly 3% of Steam usage, per the Steam hardware survey. Steam Deck, the upcoming Steam Machine, and other SteamOS devices all run on Linux, but they remain a small share of the PC gaming market, and well below the tens of millions threshold Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has named.