Principal Software Engineer, Developer Tools (US West Coast)

The role

You will define the technical vision and architecture for the internal Developer Tools team. You will design and build the internal developer platform, CI/CD systems, and AI-powered tools.

What you will do

• Define the long-term technical vision and architecture for Docker's developer tooling platform
• Lead authoring of SDLC tenets in partnership with other principal engineers, Security, and Infrastructure
• Establish architectural patterns, technical standards, and best practices
• Design highly available, scalable infrastructure for hosting developer tools, agents, and platform services
• Drive technical decisions on tooling choices, provider strategies, and agent orchestration frameworks
• Architect and build Docker's internal developer platform
• Design and implement CI/CD and build infrastructure
• Establish reliability, security, and performance standards
• Evaluate emerging technologies across developer tooling, platform engineering, AI/LLM, and agent frameworks
• Mentor senior and staff engineers

Required qualifications

• 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
• Working knowledge of AI/ML technologies and hands-on experience with LLM APIs or AI agent development
• Proficiency in Go, Rust, Java, or Python
• Strong communication skills
• Track record of technical mentorship

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

Benefits

• Remote-first by design
• Flexibility that fits your life
• Generous PTO
• Designated quarterly Whaleness Days
• Designated end-of-year Whaleness break
• Home office support
• Technology stipend equivalent to US$100 net per month
• Annual stipend for conferences, courses, certifications, and continued learning
• 16 weeks of paid parental leave after six months of employment
• Equity for all full-time employees
• Medical, retirement, and paid holidays
• Docker swag

Before you apply

• Docker considers visa sponsorship on a case-by-case basis based on business needs
• Docker may use AI-assisted tools during our recruiting process
• Candidates may be invited to opt in to interview recordings

About the company

Docker is a globally distributed, remote-first team building tools that define how software gets built and delivered. Their products include Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, and Docker Scout.