Principal Software Engineer

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.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer (Docker Agents) to join Docker’s AI engineering team to build the future of containerized AI agents. Docker containers are the perfect vehicle to host and run AI agents - providing isolation, portability, and reproducibility.

You’ll be working on Docker Agent, our open-source project (https://github.com/docker/docker-agent) and expanding on it to enable developers to build, deploy, and scale intelligent agents using Docker’s container technology.

This is a greenfield opportunity to shape how developers leverage containers for AI agents at massive scale. You’ll define the technical vision, lead architecture decisions, and partner with engineers and leaders across Docker to bring containerized agent capabilities into Docker’s developer experience.

Please note: this role is only available to candidates currently located in London (or reasonable commuting distance to London), we are unable to make exceptions to this location requirement. The role is a remote-first, very flexible hybrid work environment.

Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership & Architecture: Define and drive the long-term technical strategy for Docker’s containerized agent platform, including core primitives, APIs, and extensibility patterns

• Build Containerized Agent Systems: Design and implement systems that leverage Docker containers as the ideal runtime for AI agents, ensuring isolation, scalability, and portability

• Expand Docker Agent: Maintain and evolve the open-source cagent project, adding new capabilities for containerized agent deployment, orchestration, and lifecycle management

• Agent Runtime Development: Build robust infrastructure for packaging, deploying, and managing agents in containers across local and cloud environments

• Evaluation & Testing: Define evaluation frameworks to measure agent quality, reliability, and production readiness; plus the deployment effectiveness of containerized runtimes

• Reliability & Operability: Establish standards for observability, performance, and operational excellence; lead critical production decision-making and incident learnings as needed

• Rapid Prototyping: Iterate quickly on new agent capabilities and deployment patterns, moving from concept to production efficiently

• Open Source Community: Engage with the Docker Agent community, review contributions, and help grow the ecosystem

• Cross-functional Collaboration: Lead cross-functional technical discussions and influence architectural decisions across Docker’s AI initiatives (including sister teams and platform efforts)

• Mentorship & Enablement: Mentor senior engineers, raise the bar through design reviews, and accelerate team execution through clear technical direction and coaching

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

• Take part in on-call rotation for your team; respond to incidents, debug production issues, and drive continuous improvement of system reliability

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years in technical leadership roles (Staff/Principal level or equivalent scope)

• Go Expertise: Strong proficiency in Go is highly desired (if you're not proficient, then we will look for your ability/willingness to ramp up and work in Go - this is Docker's primary language for backend systems)

• AI/ML Knowledge: Practical experience with large language models (LLMs) and agent development patterns; hands-on experience using AI for Software development

• System Architecture: Proven ability to design scalable, distributed systems in production environments

• Container Technology: Deep understanding of Docker, containerization best practices, and container orchestration

• Cloud/Platform Depth: Experience building and operating platform services with strong foundations in observability, CI/CD, and security principles

• Operational Excellence: Experience operating and evolving high-availability production systems with a focus on reliability and performance

• Influence & Communication: Exceptional communication skills and ability to influence across technical and business domains

• AI Frameworks: Experience with CrewAI, AGNO, ADK, LangChain/LangGraph or similar AI orchestration frameworks (preferred)

• Python Proficiency: Experience with Python for AI prototyping and tooling (preferred)

• Experience with Kubernetes or container orchestration platforms (preferred)

• Open source contributions and community engagement (preferred)

• Experience with agent evaluation, reliability, and observability techniques (preferred)

What to Expect

First 30 days

• Integrate into our AI engineering team building containerized agent infrastructure

• Deep dive into Docker Agent's architecture, project roadmap, and the developer problems we’re solving

• Identify the highest-leverage architectural and execution risks/opportunities; align with stakeholders on priorities

• Contribute initial improvements to Docker Agent and the containerized agent runtime foundations

First 90 days

• Lead significant platform features or architectural improvements to Docker Agent and our containerized agent ecosystem

• Establish (or materially improve) technical standards for evaluation, reliability, and operability of agent systems

• Drive alignment across internal teams on APIs, integration points, and a cohesive developer experience

• Mentor engineers through design reviews and help accelerate onboarding and execution

One-Year Outlook

• Drive major architectural decisions for our containerized agent platform that will impact millions of Docker users

• Shape the long-term technical vision and execution plan for Docker’s agent ecosystem (open-source and product surfaces)

• Establish repeatable engineering practices for quality, performance, and operational excellence in agent systems

• Lead initiatives to expand containerized agent capabilities for enterprise use cases and broader platform integrations

• Grow the team’s technical capabilities through mentorship, strategy, and pragmatic delivery

Docker does not offer visa sponsorship for this role.

We use Covey as part of our hiring and / or promotional process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an AEDT. As part of the evaluation process we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound on April 13, 2024.

Please see the independent bias audit report covering our use of Covey here.

Perks

• Freedom & flexibility; fit your work around your life

• Designated quarterly Whaleness Days plus end of year Whaleness break

• Home office setup; we want you 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 do the things you enjoy

• Training stipend for conferences, courses and classes

• Equity; we are a growing start-up and want all employees to have a share in the success of the company

• Docker Swag

• Medical benefits, retirement and holidays vary by country

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

Docker embraces diversity and equal opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better our company will be.

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