Senior Software Engineer — Container Images & Security

The role

You will build, secure, and maintain production-ready container images at scale. This role involves Linux engineering, vulnerability remediation, and software automation across Linux distributions and application stacks.

What you will do

• Design, build, and maintain minimal, hardened container images across Linux distributions and application runtimes.
• Own end-to-end CVE remediation across OS packages, libraries, runtimes, and dependencies.
• Troubleshoot complex package compatibility, dependency, build, and runtime issues.
• Reduce image attack surface and size by removing unnecessary packages, binaries, and dependencies.
• Build and improve automated pipelines for image builds, vulnerability scanning, remediation, testing, and publishing.
• Develop tooling to manage image versioning, dependency updates, metadata, and release traceability.
• Generate, validate, and maintain SBOMs to support software supply chain visibility and compliance.
• Validate image functionality, reproducibility, and compatibility with Kubernetes and other containerized environments.
• Collaborate with platform, infrastructure, and security teams to define image hardening standards.
• Maintain clear documentation that helps developers adopt and use curated images.

Required qualifications

• 5+ years of relevant experience in software engineering, Linux systems engineering, platform engineering, DevSecOps, or SRE.
• Deep understanding of Linux systems, with hands-on experience across distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, or RHEL.
• Strong experience building and optimizing Docker images, including multi-stage builds, image layering, and container filesystem structures.
• Proven experience investigating and remediating CVEs in Linux packages and container images, including patching, rebuilding, and validating fixes.
• Strong working knowledge of Linux package management and dependency resolution using tools such as apt, apk, yum/dnf, or rpm.
• Strong programming or scripting skills in Python, Go, or Bash, with experience building maintainable automation and internal tooling.
• Experience developing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or similar tools.
• Hands-on experience with vulnerability scanners such as Trivy, Grype, or Clair, along with SBOM generation.
• Solid understanding of Kubernetes concepts, container lifecycles, and image deployment requirements.
• Ability to independently troubleshoot complex technical issues and collaborate effectively across engineering teams.

Nice to have

• Experience building minimal or distroless images and maintaining a large catalog of container images.
• Experience building Linux packages from source or backporting security fixes.
• Familiarity with SBOM formats and tools such as SPDX, CycloneDX, and Syft.
• Experience with image signing, provenance, and verification using Cosign or Sigstore.
• Knowledge of software supply chain security frameworks such as SLSA.
• Familiarity with container registries such as Docker Hub, Harbor, or Amazon ECR.
• Experience with Helm, Kustomize, GitOps, or infrastructure-as-code workflows.
• Experience in a startup environment or regulated industry.

Benefits

• Equity participation
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
• Remote-first work environment
• Opportunity to solve complex Linux, container, and software supply chain security challenges
• Career growth within a rapidly scaling cybersecurity company

Before you apply

• U.S. citizenship is required for this position due to work supporting federal government customers.

About the company

RapidFort is a rapidly scaling cybersecurity company.