Staff Software Engineer - Developer Experience

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 Developer Experience team builds the backend systems and product capabilities that help developers understand, secure and ship software with confidence. The team powers important parts of Docker Scout, Docker Hardened Images and the workflows that turn supply-chain data into useful developer experiences.

Our systems are deliberately polyglot. Today that includes Clojure and Go services, event-driven workflows, Kafka, legacy Datomic components and newer Spanner-backed services. We will keep evolving the stack as the product and business change. We are looking for an adaptable backend engineer who can become effective in an unfamiliar codebase, choose technology pragmatically and help other engineers do the same. Clojure experience is useful, but it is not a requirement and this is not a Clojure-specialist role.

We make extensive use of AI-assisted engineering tools. We expect engineers to use them thoughtfully, validate their output and remain accountable for the quality, security and operability of what ships. At Staff level, you will also help the team turn good individual practice into repeatable workflows, controls and shared standards.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will lead ambiguous, cross-team work from problem definition through measurable outcomes. You will remain hands-on in code while shaping architecture, raising operational standards and creating enough clarity for several engineers and partner teams to move quickly. Work may span developer-facing features, build and artefact workflows, data and event pipelines, platform evolution and integrations with Docker's build and security systems.

Success in This Role Looks Like

You will succeed by finding the highest-leverage problem, creating momentum before every detail is known and bringing people with you. Within your first year, teams should be delivering more confidently because you have made system boundaries clearer, reduced operational risk, connected technical choices to customer outcomes and helped senior engineers take on larger work.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for major backend and developer-experience initiatives across Clojure, Go and adjacent systems.

• Turn ambiguous product or platform problems into clear plans, staged decisions and measurable outcomes.

• Design, build and operate distributed services, event pipelines, databases and APIs with strong security and reliability characteristics.

• Lead cross-team delivery, surface risks early and remove technical or organisational blockers without waiting for formal authority.

• Make pragmatic recommendations about when to retain, evolve or replace existing components, including the continued reduction of legacy Datomic dependencies.

• Partner with Product, Design, Security and other engineering teams to connect technical investment to developer and business outcomes.

• Improve observability, incident readiness, performance and service ownership across the Developer Experience estate.

• Improve engineering leverage through appropriate automation, AI-assisted workflows and controls that preserve human accountability.

• Mentor senior engineers, raise the quality of design and code reviews and create reusable patterns that multiply the team.

• Stay hands-on through implementation, debugging and the team's paid on-call rotation.

• Communicate decisions and trade-offs clearly in a remote, async-first environment.

Qualifications

Required

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with demonstrated technical leadership on production systems at scale.

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

• Deep experience designing, building and operating production backend or platform systems.

• Strong programming ability in at least one production language, with evidence of becoming effective in unfamiliar languages and codebases.

• Experience with distributed systems, event-driven architectures, APIs, relational or distributed databases and cloud-native infrastructure.

• A track record of leading complex initiatives that crossed team or organisational boundaries.

• Strong technical and product judgement, including the ability to explain constraints, alternatives, customer outcomes and business trade-offs.

• Evidence of influencing without authority and improving the effectiveness of other experienced engineers.

• An operational mindset that treats observability, resilience, incident response and on-call ownership as part of engineering.

• Comfort using AI-assisted engineering tools critically while retaining ownership of the result.

• Clear written and spoken communication suited to a remote, async-first company.

Helpful, but not required

• Production experience with Go, Clojure or both.

• Experience with Spanner, Datomic, Kafka or other distributed data and streaming platforms.

• Experience with build systems, containers, artefact workflows or developer tooling.

• Experience evolving a platform, database or language strategy without disrupting product delivery.

• Experience building security or software supply-chain products.

What to Expect

First 30 Days

• Build context on Developer Experience products, customers, architecture and current priorities.

• Pair across Clojure, Go, Datomic and Spanner-backed systems and ship a useful production change.

• Understand the operational profile of the team's services, including on-call and recurring failure modes.

• Build working relationships with Product, Design, Security and adjacent engineering teams.

• Learn the team's AI-assisted engineering practices and identify where shared controls or workflows would improve them.

First 90 Days

• Lead the technical framing and delivery plan for one significant team or cross-team problem.

• Contribute production code in the parts of the stack needed to move that work forward.

• Identify and begin addressing a material reliability, observability, data or architectural weakness.

• Establish a mentoring and design-review cadence that helps other engineers own larger decisions.

One Year Outlook (First Year)

• Be a trusted technical leader for Developer Experience and a sought-after partner across Docker.

• Deliver at least one material product or platform outcome spanning multiple teams or systems.

• Improve the reliability, clarity and delivery speed of the backend and data estate.

• Shape pragmatic evolution across Clojure, Go, Datomic, Spanner and future technologies without turning technology choice into the goal.

• Grow other senior engineers into broader ownership and reduce the number of decisions that depend on a small set of people.

Docker considers sponsorship on a case-by-case basis based on business needs.

Compensation & Equity

EU: €110,500 – €181,500+ equity

United States: $170,350 – $275,550 + equity

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Posting Information

• 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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Perks & Benefits

• Remote-first by design – Work from your home, with offices in Seattle and Paris for connection and collaboration.

• Flexibility that fits your life – We trust you to manage your schedule while delivering great work.

• Time to recharge – Generous PTO, designated quarterly Whaleness Days, and a designated end-of-year Whaleness break.

• Home office support – Set up your workspace for comfort and success.

• Technology stipend – Equivalent to US$100 net per month to help support your work.

• Learning & development – Annual stipend for conferences, courses, certifications, and continued learning.

• Parental leave – 16 weeks of paid parental leave after six months of employment.

• Equity for all full-time employees – Share in Docker's long-term success as we continue to grow.

• Comprehensive benefits – Medical, retirement, and paid holidays vary by country.

• Docker swag – Because representing the whale never gets old.

Docker is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We believe diverse teams build better products, make better decisions, and better serve our global community.

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