Principal Software Engineer, Docker Hardened Images

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Canada.

📋 Description

• Lead the architectural framework for DHI as a platform, making impactful decisions that dictate how images and Helm charts are created, secured, distributed, and developed throughout the entire catalog and across Docker's wider product range.

• Establish and manage multi-quarter technical roadmaps for the container hardening sector, balancing upstream speed, supply chain security posture, customer compliance needs, and long-term catalog scalability.

• Detect systemic trends from customer, operational, and upstream signals, translating them into architectural modifications that encompass the entire catalog rather than focusing on individual images or charts.

• Cultivate consensus among teams and executives regarding technical strategy, trade-offs, and sequencing, involving product, security, infrastructure, and customer-facing functions.

• Act as a trusted technical representative for Docker in escalations, key enterprise customer interactions, and upstream OSS communities concerning issues that influence the future of secure container delivery.

• Establish conventions and standards at scale, defining the frameworks others utilize for image definition, Helm chart modification, hardening strategies, and supply chain tools (Sigstore, SBOM, SLSA), while adapting those standards as the ecosystem evolves.

• Tackle the most challenging and unclear packaging issues where the optimal solution necessitates consideration of upstream dynamics, security trade-offs, multi-architecture constraints, and customer impacts concurrently.

• Shape the integration test infrastructure and developer tooling strategy to ensure DHI's engineering platform scales alongside the catalog and enhances quality across the team.

• Mentor and elevate the technical capabilities of staff and senior engineers throughout the organization through reviews, design, and well-informed architectural choices that create sustainable leverage.

• Participate in the paid on-call rotation; respond to incidents, troubleshoot production issues, and drive systemic enhancements in reliability.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 10 years of backend engineering experience, with substantial involvement in production-grade, distributed systems at scale.

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

• Capability to establish multi-quarter technical roadmaps and align stakeholders (engineering, product, and executives) on strategy and trade-offs.

• Profound expertise in the container and Kubernetes ecosystem: possessing strong, well-founded opinions about cert-manager, kyverno, grafana, istio, and similar projects, with the ability to reason about trade-offs at the ecosystem level, not just at the image level.

• Expertise in container supply chain security concepts (provenance, attestation, SBOM, signing, SLSA) and experience making posture decisions across an organization rather than implementing them on a single project.

• Strong fundamentals in software engineering: code review, testing, source control, CI/CD, and Go sufficient to shape infrastructure and design.

• Proven history of technical influence without formal authority across multiple teams or organizations, enhancing quality through design documents, standards, reviews, and mentorship.

• Experience navigating upstream OSS communities as a decision-maker, representing a downstream organization's needs and influencing upstream direction on security-related issues.

• Comfortable working across remote, distributed teams and effectively communicating complex technical strategies to both technical and non-technical audiences.

🏝️ Benefits

• Freedom & flexibility; tailor your work around your life.

• Designated quarterly Whaleness Days plus an end-of-year Whaleness break.

• Home office setup; we want you to be comfortable while you work.

• 16 weeks of paid parental leave (after 6 months of employment).

• Technology stipend equivalent to $100 USD net/month.

• PTO plan that encourages you to take time to enjoy personal pursuits.

• Training stipend for conferences, courses, and classes.

• Equity; we are a growing start-up and wish for all employees to share in the company's success.

• Docker Swag.

• Medical benefits, retirement, and holidays vary by country.

• Remote-first culture, with offices in Seattle and Paris.