Principal Software Engineer, Developer Tools (US West Coast)
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- United States
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Principal
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- 3+ years
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 10+ years software engineering experience with 3+ years in Staff or Principal Engineer roles
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Proven track record architecting and operating developer-facing platforms, internal tools, or developer productivity systems at scale
- Deep expertise in CI/CD systems, build infrastructure, and GitOps deployment patterns
- Production experience with cloud-native infrastructure including Kubernetes, observability systems (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki), and deployment tooling
- Experience designing self-service platforms, developer portals, or golden path tooling that enable other teams to move faster
- Working knowledge of AI/ML technologies and hands-on experience with LLM APIs or AI agent development
- Proficiency in Go (preferred), Rust, Java, or Python with strong software engineering fundamentals
- Exceptional product and platform mindset considering developer experience, business outcomes, and technical/security trade-offs
- Strong communication skills with ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Track record of technical mentorship and elevating engineering teams' capabilities
- Ownership mentality with bias for action and iterative delivery in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
- Comfortable with autonomous work in distributed, remote-first teams across multiple time zones
Nice to have
- Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or similar AI agent integration standards
- Background in DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering domains
- Contributions to open source developer tooling, platform engineering, or observability projects
- Experience productizing internal platforms into commercial offerings
- Deep knowledge of security, compliance, and operational best practices for production systems
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code frameworks (Terraform, Pulumi) and multi-cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)
- Track record driving org-wide adoption of developer tooling and engineering standards
Full description
About Docker
Docker 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.
We 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.
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The Role
Docker 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.
You'll own the technical strategy across four interconnected pillars:
- Platform 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.
- CI/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.
As 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.
Reporting 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.
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What Would Make Someone Successful in This Role
You'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.