Principal Software Engineer, Docker Hardened Images

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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Docker Hardened Images (DHI) is Docker's catalogue of security-hardened, enterprise-grade container images and Helm charts, built to be minimal, up-to-date, and safe to deploy in regulated and security-conscious environments. We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to set the long-term technical direction for this catalogue and shape how the broader container security ecosystem evolves inside and beyond Docker.

At this level, you'll work across organizations, not just within one team. You'll set direction for major domains, resolve the highest-ambiguity problems in container supply chain security, and grow your impact through architectural leadership, cross-functional alignment, and influence on industry standards. This is a pure individual contributor role; influence comes through technical vision, design, and the ability to move organizations.

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• Experience as a package maintainer at a Linux distribution, Homebrew, or comparable ecosystem.

• Hands-on experience implementing or operationalizing supply chain tooling (Sigstore, SBOM, SLSA) at org scale.

• Experience in regulated environments (FedRAMP, FIPS, PCI) with direct exposure to compliance requirements shaping engineering decisions.

• Prior Principal or Distinguished IC experience on a platform, security, or developer-tools team.

• Experience engaging directly with enterprise customers on container security architecture.

• Align with leadership on the most critical org-wide technical risks and opportunities in container supply chain security.

• Develop a point of view on DHI's current architectural constraints and where the highest-leverage interventions are.

• Begin mapping the cross-functional landscape: product priorities, upstream pressures, customer compliance signals, and engineering gaps.

• Drive an architectural decision that unblocks multiple teams and reduces systemic risk across the catalogue.

• Establish a feedback loop from customer, operational, and upstream signals into the multi-quarter roadmap.

• Engage upstream OSS communities on at least one DHI-relevant issue with meaningful influence on direction.

• Deliver a major platform or standards evolution with broad adoption across DHI and adjacent teams.

• Create durable alignment across engineering, product, and security on catalogue architecture, supply chain posture, and hardening strategy.

• Raise the technical ceiling for the engineers around you, measurably improving review quality, architectural consistency, and the team's ability to operate independently at a higher level.

• Open vacancy: This posting is for an existing open role.

• AI in hiring: Docker may use AI-assisted tools during our recruiting process.

• Interview 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.

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