Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United Kingdom, +4 more countries.

📋 Description

• Collaborate with customer engineering teams to conceptualize, develop, and implement solutions from initial prototype to stable production deployment.

• Provide tailored MCP servers, Docker Sandbox environments, Docker Compose setups, standardized hardened images, migration tools, and resources that facilitate customer progress.

• Integrate Docker's AI platform with identity providers, secrets management, private and air-gapped registries, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tools.

• Take ownership of technical delivery by defining project scope, sequencing tasks, making trade-offs, eliminating obstacles, and contributing code.

• Convert customer security, compliance, and platform requirements into actionable production plans.

• Assist customers in adopting agentic AI while ensuring security, compliance, data sovereignty, and controls for end-users are in place.

• Set customer quality and performance benchmarks and address any issues that fall below these standards.

• Collaborate with security and platform teams on architecture assessments, threat modeling, and change management.

• Work with Solutions Architecture on both standard and customized solutions.

• Incorporate implementation insights into reference architectures, SOW templates, success patterns, and product features.

• Aid in proofs of concept, handle escalations, and engage in expansion discussions.

• Relay customer insights to Product and Engineering teams to shape the roadmap.

• Define FDE engagement models, delivery standards, and quality expectations.

• Mentor and guide Forward Deployed Engineers while participating in hiring processes.

• Serve as a senior technical escalation resource.

• Keep abreast of current trends in LLMs, APIs, MCP, coding agents, evaluation techniques, and deployment strategies.

• Participate in an on-call rotation outside of regular business hours as required.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 10 years of software engineering experience, with at least 4 years in a customer-facing technical capacity.

• Demonstrated technical leadership across various engagements, teams, or domains.

• Proficient production coding skills in Go, Python, or TypeScript.

• Extensive hands-on expertise in Docker, including Dockerfiles, multi-stage builds, Docker Compose, image and registry management, container networking and storage, and container security basics.

• Practical experience developing with LLMs and agents in production, including tool utilization, function invocation, MCP, prompt and context engineering, and agent evaluation.

• Knowledge of software supply chain security, covering SBOMs, image signing and attestation, vulnerability management, and secure CI/CD with minimal and hardened base images.

• Experience with integrating enterprise systems like Okta, Entra ID, LDAP/Active Directory, OIDC, SAML, secrets managers, Kubernetes, and cloud services such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.

• Capability to define and execute complex tasks in uncertain customer environments.

• Strong communication skills for interaction with engineers, security and platform teams, and executive stakeholders.

• Proven track record in technical mentorship.

• High autonomy and comfort in operating within distributed, remote-first teams.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• Willingness to travel to customer locations, estimated at up to 50%.

• Bonus: Familiarity with Docker Hardened Images, Docker Scout, MCP Gateway, MCP Toolkit, Docker Sandboxes, or Docker Model Runner.

• Bonus: Experience deploying coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, or Cursor.

• Bonus: Background in air-gapped, regulated, or compliance-driven environments.

• Bonus: Contributions to open source projects in the container, Kubernetes, or MCP ecosystems.

• Bonus: Experience in founding or expanding an FDE or Professional Services practice.

🏝️ Benefits

• Remote-first work environment by design.

• Flexibility that accommodates your lifestyle.

• Generous paid time off (PTO).

• Designated quarterly Whaleness Days.

• Scheduled end-of-year Whaleness break.

• Support for home office setup.

• Technology stipend of US$100 net per month.

• Annual budget for conferences, courses, certifications, and ongoing education.

• 16 weeks of paid parental leave following six months of employment.

• Equity options available for all full-time staff.

• Comprehensive medical benefits.

• Retirement plan benefits.

• Paid holidays.

• Docker merchandise.