{"id":2036965,"url":"https://alion.io/job/docker-staff-software-engineer-docker-ai-substrate-seattle-or-palo-alto","title":"Staff Software Engineer, Docker AI Substrate (Seattle or Palo Alto)","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":79,"open_postings":8,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.625,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":60,"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Palo Alto, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":214000,"max_usd":398000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":1432},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"OpenTelemetry","optional":false},{"name":"SLI/SLO/SLA","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-07T15:41:05Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-07","last_verified_at":"2026-10-25T02:45:47Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":17,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":17},"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_______________________________________________________________________\nAs agents take on bigger jobs, the infrastructure around them matters more. Docker's answer is to give every agent a strong boundary, make its environment and authority reproducible, and let the work run where it makes sense, from a developer's laptop to the cloud. The Docker AI Substrate team brings that foundation to the enterprise: the largest companies in the world, running agents at scale, with the security, reliability, and control they expect from any critical system. We are a small, senior team at the start of that work. As a Staff Software Engineer here, you will shape the architecture, build the core systems, and run what you build.\nLocations: Seattle, WA or Palo Alto, CA.\nResponsibilities\nDesign and build the systems that deploy, release, and operate Docker's agentic platform for enterprise customers, in Go and on Kubernetes.\n\nMake the platform run consistently across cloud providers and environments, with the security, identity, and network boundaries enterprises require.\n\nOwn the release and supply chain path so every deployment is reproducible, verifiable, and trusted.\n\nRun what you build: production ownership, on-call, SLOs, incident response, and the operational tooling that keeps it boring.\n\nSet technical direction with the team's architect and engineering leadership, and work with partner teams across runtime, developer experience, identity, and observability.\n\nRaise the bar through design review, testing discipline, and mentorship as the team grows.\n\nQualifications\nRequired\nYou have built and operated a cloud control and management plane. Software that provisions, upgrades, and watches infrastructure for many tenants or environments, in production, with a pager. Experience at a cloud provider, a managed-service vendor, or a platform team that stamps out environments.\n\nKubernetes beyond deployment. You have written controllers or operators, understand reconciliation and CRDs, and know why declarative beats imperative at fleet scale.\n\nDeep in at least one major cloud. Hands-on with compute, networking, identity, and managed services, and able to pick up a second cloud fast.\n\nProduction ownership. On-call, incident response, SLOs, post-mortems. You run what you build.\n\nDistributed systems design. Fault tolerance, consistency, observability, idempotent reconciliation.\n\nGo. Professional proficiency. Docker's backend and all of this team's code is Go.\n\n10+ years of professional software engineering in infrastructure, platform, or cloud services, with the judgment to set direction for others.\n\nStrongly preferred\nKubernetes resource orchestration and cloud controllers, such as KRO.\n\nRelease engineering and software supply chain: OCI registries, digests, license compliance.\n\nPrivate connectivity between cloud accounts: PrivateLink, VPC peering, service endpoints, egress policy.\n\nOpenTelemetry pipelines with multiple destinations.\n\nBuildingmanaged services.\n\nFirecracker, microVMs, or other isolated execution environments for untrusted code.\n\nBachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.\n\nDocker considers visa sponsorship on a case-by-case basis based on business needs.\nCompensation & Equity\nUnited States: $170,350 - $275,550 + 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 up your workspace for comfort and success.\n\nTechnology stipend - Equivalent to US$100 net per month to help support your work.\n\nLearning & development - Annual stipend for conferences, courses, certifications, and continued learning.\n\nParental leave - 16 weeks of paid parental leave after six months of employment.\n\nEquity for all full-time employees - Share in Docker's long-term success as we continue to grow.\n\nComprehensive benefits - Medical, retirement, and paid holidays vary by country.\n\nDocker swag - Because representing the whale never gets old.\n\nDocker is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We believe diverse teams build better products, make better decisions, and better serve our global community.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5744,"description_truncated":false,"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":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["DevOps & Platform Engineering","Virtualization & Containers","Developer Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-07T16:24:38Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":16,"expected_fill_days":60,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/docker-staff-software-engineer-docker-ai-substrate-seattle-or-palo-alto","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/docker-staff-software-engineer-docker-ai-substrate-seattle-or-palo-alto.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-25T05:41:55Z","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":7914,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-26T00:00:00Z"}},"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-staff-software-engineer-docker-ai-substrate-seattle-or-palo-alto"},{"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-staff-software-engineer-docker-ai-substrate-seattle-or-palo-alto"},{"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-staff-software-engineer-docker-ai-substrate-seattle-or-palo-alto"},{"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-staff-software-engineer-docker-ai-substrate-seattle-or-palo-alto\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fdocker-staff-software-engineer-docker-ai-substrate-seattle-or-palo-alto"}]}