I work at MSFT on windows kernel drivers - not the kernel directly though. I’d say go for it. Knowing how to program in kernel mode is a lucrative skill set. There aren’t enough people that know how to do it.

In my experience the kernel devs are the best of the best developers. But know that working on the windows kernel will be complicated and require a lot of domain knowledge. Expect to learn about it for _years_ to come.