{"id":497,"url":"https://alion.io/job/docker-principal-software-engineer-developer-tools-us-west-coast","title":"Principal Software Engineer, Developer Tools (US West Coast)","company":{"id":569,"name":"Docker","domain":"docker.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/docker","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":78,"open_postings":8,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.875,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":58,"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":153000,"max_usd":296000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":233},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"GitOps","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Grafana","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Loki","optional":false},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":false},{"name":"Outlook","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Prometheus","optional":false},{"name":"Pulumi","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-06-26T20:49:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-26","last_verified_at":"2026-10-18T12:17:18Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":113,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":113},"description":"About Docker\nDocker has been one of the most loved brands in developer tooling, trusted by more than 20 million monthly users and over 20 billion container image pulls. From solo founders to the world's largest companies, developers rely on Docker to build, share, and run their applications across our suite of products including Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, and Docker Scout.\nWe are a globally distributed, remote-first team building the tools that define how software gets built and delivered. As AI agents redefine software development, Docker is at the center of that shift, providing the sandboxed environments, verified images, and secure infrastructure that make autonomous workflows trustworthy by default.\n_______________________________________________________________________\nDocker seeks a Principal Software Engineer to define the technical vision and architecture for our internal Developer Tools team. This is a rare opportunity to establish how software is designed, built, shipped, and operated at Docker. With the addition of AI we are modernizing our SDLC and building the mechanisms that make the right way the easy way for every engineer.\nYou'll own the technical strategy across four interconnected pillars:\nPlatform Engineering & Self-Service: Design and build the internal developer platform that empowers teams across Docker to unblock themselves, rapidly scaffolding, prototyping, deploying, and operating their own services and tools.\nCI/CD & Build Systems: Define Docker's technical approach to continuous integration, delivery, and build infrastructure. Establish architectural standards for pipeline tooling, GitOps deployment patterns, build substrate, and release engineering.\nAs Principal Software Engineer, you'll partner with engineering leadership across Docker, principal engineers, Security, Infrastructure, and the service teams to author the SDLC tenets that underpin all of this work, and build the mechanisms those tenets run through.\nReporting to the Sr Manager of Developer Tools, you'll collaborate closely with engineering leadership across Docker, product engineering teams, platform teams, and ultimately customers as internal tools evolve into product offerings.\nWhat Would Make Someone Successful in This Role\nYou're a technical leader who excels at the intersection of developer experience, platform engineering, and systems design. You think in platforms and golden paths, building once and enabling dozens of teams to move faster. You have strong opinions on what makes developer tools great: invisible by default, indispensable once adopted, and measurable in the workflows engineers already use.\nYou have deep experience across the breadth of the developer tooling stack, CI/CD, build systems, observability infrastructure, and developer platforms, and working knowledge of LLM integration and AI agent development. You understand the nuances of internal platforms: designing for adoption, not mandate; plugging into existing workflows before standing up new ones; and earning trust through data before expanding scope.\nYou have exceptional judgment on when to build custom solutions versus integrate existing tools, and you're comfortable navigating a rapidly evolving landscape across both AI and developer infrastructure. You balance technical excellence with pragmatism, shipping iteratively while maintaining high quality bars. Most importantly, you lead through influence and mentorship, elevating the entire engineering organization's technical capabilities.\nResponsibilities\nTechnical Leadership & Architecture\nDefine the long-term technical vision and architecture for Docker's developer tooling platform spanning platform engineering, CI/CD, and AI-powered tools\n\nLead authoring of SDLC tenets in partnership with other principal engineers, Security, and Infrastructure and build the mechanisms those tenets bind to (design gates, code review gates, pipeline standards, visibility)\n\nEstablish architectural patterns, technical standards, and best practices across the developer tooling stack\n\nDesign highly available, scalable infrastructure for hosting developer tools, agents, and platform services\n\nDrive technical decisions on tooling choices, provider strategies, build/deploy substrate, and agent orchestration frameworks\n\nPartner with Senior Manager and product leadership to align technical architecture with business objectives and productization opportunities\n\nSystems Design & Implementation\nArchitect and build Docker's internal developer platform, the self-service substrate enabling teams to scaffold, deploy, and operate services with minimal friction\n\nDesign and implement CI/CD and build infrastructure that supports Docker's SDLC tenets and GitOps deployment patterns\n\nEstablish reliability, security, and performance standards across developer tooling including SLOs, monitoring, incident response, and cost management\n\nDesign integration points between developer tools and existing infrastructure (CI/CD pipelines, observability platforms, deployment systems)\n\nStrategic Impact & Innovation\nEvaluate emerging technologies across developer tooling, platform engineering, AI/LLM, and agent frameworks to inform Docker's technical strategy\n\nDefine and enforce the golden path, the concrete, left-to-right walkthrough of how Docker builds software, and identify where tooling closes gaps vs. where human process does\n\nDrive technical standards for measuring developer tool effectiveness: adoption metrics, productivity gains, pipeline performance, and developer satisfaction\n\nLead cross-functional technical discussions influencing company-wide developer tooling architecture\n\nDefine technical approach for productizing successful internal developer tools into customer-facing offerings\n\nLeadership & Mentorship\nMentor senior and staff engineers on platform engineering, CI/CD patterns, design, and AI/LLM integration\n\nLead design reviews and technical decision-making across all developer tooling work\n\nFoster culture of technical excellence, experimentation, and rapid prototyping within the Developer Tools team\n\nServe as primary technical contact and thought leader for developer tooling across Docker's engineering organization\n\nCollaborate with platform teams (Infrastructure, Security, Agentic Platform, Supply Chain Security) to establish shared technical standards and integration patterns\n\nThis role may require participation in an on-call rotation to provide support outside of standard business hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays, as needed.\n\nQualifications\nRequired:\n10+ years software engineering experience with 3+ years in Staff or Principal Engineer roles\n\nBachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.\n\nProven track record architecting and operating developer-facing platforms, internal tools, or developer productivity systems at scale\n\nDeep expertise in CI/CD systems, build infrastructure, and GitOps deployment patterns\n\nProduction experience with cloud-native infrastructure including Kubernetes, observability systems (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki), and deployment tooling\n\nExperience designing self-service platforms, developer portals, or golden path tooling that enable other teams to move faster\n\nWorking knowledge of AI/ML technologies and hands-on experience with LLM APIs or AI agent development\n\nProficiency in Go (preferred), Rust, Java, or Python with strong software engineering fundamentals\n\nExceptional product and platform mindset considering developer experience, business outcomes, and technical/security trade-offs\n\nStrong communication skills with ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders\n\nTrack record of technical mentorship and elevating engineering teams' capabilities\n\nOwnership mentality with bias for action and iterative delivery in ambiguous, fast-moving environments\n\nComfortable with autonomous work in distributed, remote-first teams across multiple time zones\n\nPreferred:\nExperience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or similar AI agent integration standards\n\nBackground in DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering domains\n\nContributions to open source developer tooling, platform engineering, or observability projects\n\nExperience productizing internal platforms into commercial offerings\n\nDeep knowledge of security, compliance, and operational best practices for production systems\n\nExperience with infrastructure-as-code frameworks (Terraform, Pulumi) and multi-cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)\n\nTrack record driving org-wide adoption of developer tooling and engineering standards\n\nWhat to Expect\nFirst 30 Days\nUnderstand Docker's current developer tooling landscape: AI tools, CI/CD state, platform engineering gaps, and the foundational SDLC gap\n\nMeet with engineering leadership, principal engineers, and key technical stakeholders across product engineering, Security, Infrastructure, and Agentic Platform\n\nConduct deep technical assessment of current developer tooling infrastructure to identify opportunities and constraints across all four pillars\n\nReview existing tools in production and understand what's working, what isn't, and the technical lessons learned\n\nPartner with Senior Manager to define initial technical priorities and 90-day technical roadmap across pillars\n\nFirst 90 Days\nDefine and document technical architecture for the Developer Tools platform across: system design, technology choices, integration patterns, and operational model\n\nShip first production deliverable, either an extension of existing tooling or a net-new tool with architectural patterns and standards that scale to future work\n\nEstablish technical foundations for the self-service platform: deployment pipeline, security controls, and cost management\n\nLead or contribute to the SDLC tenets working session with principal engineers, Security, and Infrastructure\n\nDefine success metrics and instrumentation strategy for measuring developer tool adoption, effectiveness, and productivity impact\n\nCreate architectural decision records and best practices guides for teams building on the platform\n\nFirst Year Outlook\nEstablish mature technical architecture for the Developer Tools platform with multiple production tools demonstrating value\n\nBuild production-ready self-service platform enabling multiple teams to build, deploy, and operate their own tools with minimal friction\n\nDefine and implement technical standards for measuring developer productivity improvement: design quality, commit frequency, PR velocity, deployment reliability, and incident response times\n\nLead technical strategy for productizing successful internal tools into customer-facing offerings\n\nPosition Developer Tools as Docker's technical center of excellence for developer productivity, with regular technical talks, demos, and knowledge sharing\n\nDefine multi-year technical roadmap including advanced platform capabilities, expanded AI tooling, and emerging technology adoption\n\nDocker considers visa sponsorship on a case-by-case basis based on business needs.\nCompensation & Equity\nUnited States: $198K - $319K + equity\n______________________________________________________________________\nPosting Information\nOpen vacancy: This posting is for an existing open role.\n\nAI in hiring: Docker may use AI-assisted tools during our recruiting process.\n\nInterview recordings: Candidates will be invited to opt in to interview recordings to support interviewer calibration and consistent evaluations. Recordings are optional and require explicit consent.\n\n______________________________________________________________________\nPerks & Benefits\nRemote-first by design - Work from your home, with offices in Seattle and Paris for connection and collaboration.\n\nFlexibility that fits your life - We trust you to manage your schedule while delivering great work.\n\nTime to recharge - Generous PTO, designated quarterly Whaleness Days, and a designated end-of-year Whaleness break.\n\nHome office support - Set...","description_format":"text","description_chars":12832,"description_truncated":true,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Home office","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["DevOps & Platform Engineering","Virtualization & Containers","Developer Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-06-26T20:49:42Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":27,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.738,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":112,"expected_fill_days":58,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/docker-principal-software-engineer-developer-tools-us-west-coast","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/docker-principal-software-engineer-developer-tools-us-west-coast.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-18T13:00:11Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":19275,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-19T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":569},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=569"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fdocker-principal-software-engineer-developer-tools-us-west-coast"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fdocker-principal-software-engineer-developer-tools-us-west-coast"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fdocker-principal-software-engineer-developer-tools-us-west-coast"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/docker-principal-software-engineer-developer-tools-us-west-coast\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fdocker-principal-software-engineer-developer-tools-us-west-coast"}]}