For the longest time I viewed kernel programming as an exalted realm of "optimized bare-metal software written by visionaries and wizards" (like operating system core developers of the Dave Cutler variety). Having had the misfortune of dabbling in reverse-engineering Windows drivers and debugging in-tree Linux kernel drivers, I now believe they're often messy hackjobs written by low-paid average-skilled embedded developers, no less fallible than the average enterprise Java programmer (https://blog.ffwll.ch/2022/08/locking-hierarchy.html expresses a similar sentiment). And I feel the maintainers are sometimes spread far too thin (Dmitry Torokhov manages a good chunk of Linux's entire input system, no wonder he lets mistakes slip by in the touchpad driver, I'm just disappointed I reported a bug to the mailing lists and never got a reply after like a month).

EDIT: The wizards are out there, for example https://pvk.ca/Blog/2019/01/09/preemption-is-gc-for-memory-r..., but they're not evenly distributed, and perhaps the insane cutting-edge code they write (and the less insane code I write) isn't necessarily dependable, since by definition they lie on the edge of human understanding.