Haven't worked on NT kernel, did implement a device driver for it once.
Spent first 4 years of my career doing Linux kernel development.
In general, go for it. The level of understanding you obtain by working on the kernel about how things -really- work will make you a better engineer even if it turns out not to be for you.
Things I would caution you about based on the downsides of your current job:
1. Kernels make k8s look simple. Not just simple, childs-play.
2. Debugging experience in kernel-land can vary widely depending on what layer of the stack you are working on and that nature of the bugs. Highly concurrent pieces of any kernel are a nightmare to debug because such bugs are normally race conditions and timings are incredibly sensitive when you get this close to the metal.
3. Whilst you won't have to worry about this initially as you will probably need a few years experience at this level before you design new kernel subsystems I definitely wouldn't consider architecture at this level less complicated than distributed systems. This is because computers these days -are- distributed system. NUMA essentially means you have all the same problems. You do have much more convenient tools for solving them though (at the cost of performance) like HW coherency, etc.
4. Ok yeah, you shouldn't need to worry about this one. You won't be standing up new build systems or anything.
5. Well.. this is the rough part of kernel bugs. When you fk something up you potentially fk over everyone, usually in a very subtle, hard to diagnose and even harder to workaround way.
So yeah, go do it but don't do it because you think you will be getting away from those things because you aren't really.
Do it because you think it will be enriching/fun/whatever you want more of in your life.
In general, go for it. The level of understanding you obtain by working on the kernel about how things -really- work will make you a better engineer even if it turns out not to be for you.
Things I would caution you about based on the downsides of your current job:
1. Kernels make k8s look simple. Not just simple, childs-play.
2. Debugging experience in kernel-land can vary widely depending on what layer of the stack you are working on and that nature of the bugs. Highly concurrent pieces of any kernel are a nightmare to debug because such bugs are normally race conditions and timings are incredibly sensitive when you get this close to the metal.
3. Whilst you won't have to worry about this initially as you will probably need a few years experience at this level before you design new kernel subsystems I definitely wouldn't consider architecture at this level less complicated than distributed systems. This is because computers these days -are- distributed system. NUMA essentially means you have all the same problems. You do have much more convenient tools for solving them though (at the cost of performance) like HW coherency, etc.
4. Ok yeah, you shouldn't need to worry about this one. You won't be standing up new build systems or anything.
5. Well.. this is the rough part of kernel bugs. When you fk something up you potentially fk over everyone, usually in a very subtle, hard to diagnose and even harder to workaround way.
So yeah, go do it but don't do it because you think you will be getting away from those things because you aren't really. Do it because you think it will be enriching/fun/whatever you want more of in your life.