About Docker

Docker is a beloved developer tooling brand, trusted by over 20 million monthly users and with more than 20 billion container image pulls. Developers worldwide rely on Docker's suite of products, including Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, and Docker Scout, to build, share, and run their applications.

We are a remote-first, globally distributed team dedicated to building the tools that shape software development and delivery. As AI agents transform the landscape, Docker is at the forefront, providing secure infrastructure, verified images, and sandboxed environments essential for trustworthy autonomous workflows.

The Role: Senior Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure

Docker is seeking a Senior Principal Engineer to be the technical visionary and architect for our Bridge organization. This foundational platform underpins accounts, billing, data, developer tools, and enterprise governance across all Docker products. It's a highly impactful individual contributor role, responsible for defining and driving the technical strategy that unifies Docker's products into a cohesive enterprise platform, poised for future growth.

In this role, you will establish strategic technical plans spanning multiple engineering organizations, make critical architectural decisions affecting Docker's entire product portfolio, and lead cross-company programs that directly drive revenue. You'll operate at the intersection of Accounts, Billing, Data, Platform Infrastructure, Developer Tools, and Enterprise Governance, ensuring seamless integration to support Docker's evolution towards usage-based pricing, expansion into AI and security products, and growth to hundreds of thousands of enterprise customers.

This position requires a blend of deep technical expertise across various domains and the business acumen to translate Docker's commercial strategy into robust platform capabilities. You will be recognized as Docker's definitive expert on platform architecture, consulted by executives on strategic technical decisions, and will empower product teams to rapidly launch enterprise-ready features by abstracting underlying complexity.

Responsibilities

Technical Vision & Strategic Planning

Define and own the multi-year technical vision for Docker's foundational platform (accounts, billing, data, enterprise governance, infrastructure).
Establish strategic plans and objectives for major platform initiatives, making architectural decisions aligned with Docker's business goals.
Collaborate with the VP of Engineering to translate organizational strategy into multi-year technical roadmaps.
Identify and prioritize platform investments that offer maximum leverage across all Docker products.
Develop architectural principles and standards to guide the Bridge organization and influence product engineering teams.
Anticipate future business needs and ensure platform architecture supports evolving commercial models.

Cross-Company Technical Leadership

Lead large-scale, cross-company programs involving Desktop, Hub, AI, Security, Cloud, and Platform teams.
Architect unified platform interfaces ("Control Planes") enabling product teams to address core questions (e.g., user access, consumption) without deep system knowledge.
Drive the convergence of fragmented systems, replacing product-specific solutions with shared platform capabilities for authentication, authorization, billing, and observability.
Establish technical contracts between platform and product teams to enable independent velocity while ensuring consistency.
Lead architectural reviews for major initiatives, ensuring alignment with platform strategy and long-term maintainability.
Proactively identify and resolve critical business-impacting issues.

Billing & Monetization Platform Architecture

Architect the Billing Control Plane to enable launching new product SKUs in weeks, not months.
Design the Usage-Based Billing platform to support sophisticated pricing models (base fees, per-seat, consumption, volume discounts).
Ensure billing architecture supports commercial flexibility, including bundle pricing, enterprise contracts, and rapid pricing experimentation.
Define metering infrastructure for seamless usage event reporting, aggregation, rating, invoicing, and revenue recognition.
Architect scalable billing systems that maintain accuracy and auditability for enterprise customers and finance.

Accounts & Identity Platform Architecture

Design a metadata-driven identity platform as the single source of truth for authentication, authorization, and access control.
Architect account infrastructure supporting enterprise requirements like domain-based ownership, organization lifecycle management, and namespace separation.
Define a Centralized Access Control Service as the standard authorization point, replacing fragmented solutions.
Ensure identity architecture balances consumer simplicity with enterprise complexity.
Design migration paths for seamless transition of millions of existing users.

Enterprise Governance Platform Architecture

Architect a Unified Internal Access Control Endpoint to centralize entitlements, permissions, policies, and feature flags.
Design the Enterprise Command Center for a consolidated administrative experience across all Docker products.
Define group management and RBAC architecture supporting global, group, and user-level policy scoping with IdP synchronization.
Architect high-volume audit logging and observability infrastructure meeting enterprise compliance (SOC 2, ISO 27001) and SIEM integration.
Ensure governance architecture enables new products to be "enterprise-ready" from launch.

Data Platform Architecture

Define canonical data models for analytics, reporting, and machine learning.
Architect real-time streaming infrastructure for immediate reaction to customer behavior.
Design self-service data capabilities with robust governance and accuracy.
Ensure data architecture supports both operational (dashboards, alerts) and analytical (BI, forecasting) needs.
Drive convergence to eliminate conflicting metrics and enhance trust in business decisions.

Infrastructure & Developer Experience Architecture

Define an infrastructure platform vision that removes bottlenecks to innovation, enabling rapid deployment of experimental services.
Architect standardized deployment patterns encoding best practices for security, scaling, monitoring, and reliability.
Design infrastructure specifically supporting AI and agent initiatives (rapid deployment, programmatic environment creation, consistent APIs).
Establish observability standards including distributed tracing, metrics, log aggregation, and error tracking.
Drive cost optimization across platform infrastructure while maintaining performance and reliability.

Technical Excellence & Influence

Collaborate with senior managers and directors to drive operations and strategy within the Bridge organization.
Mentor Staff and Principal engineers, elevating the technical bar across the organization.
Represent Docker's platform architecture externally through publications and community engagement.
Participate in executive-level discussions on technical strategy.
Drive build-vs-buy decisions for critical platform components.
Participate in on-call rotations, incident response, and continuous improvement of system reliability.

Qualifications

Required

Technical Expertise

12+ years of software engineering experience with demonstrated expertise across multiple platform domains (identity, billing, data, infrastructure).
Proven track record architecting and delivering large-scale distributed systems for millions of users and thousands of enterprise customers.
Deep expertise in at least two of the following: identity/access management systems, billing/monetization platforms, data platforms, or cloud infrastructure.
Broad working knowledge across all platform domains, with the ability to make sound architectural decisions spanning multiple areas.
Expert-level understanding of API design, service architecture, and large-scale system integration patterns.
Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and modern infrastructure patterns (Kubernetes, service mesh, IaC).
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Strategic & Business Impact

Track record of establishing strategic technical plans that enabled business outcomes (revenue growth, cost reduction, market expansion).
Experience translating business strategy into technical architecture and roadmaps.
Demonstrated ability to identify and prioritize investments yielding maximum platform leverage.
Understanding of SaaS business models, enterprise sales cycles, and the influence of platform capabilities on commercial success.
Experience making build-vs-buy decisions for critical platform components.

Leadership & Influence

Proven ability to drive large cross-company technical programs requiring multi-organizational coordination.
Experience working with VPs and executives to set and execute technical strategy.
Track record of influencing technical direction without direct authority, building consensus across teams with differing priorities.
Strong communication skills, with the ability to present to executives, influence leadership, and drive alignment at all levels.
Experience mentoring senior engineers and developing technical leadership.

Enterprise Platform Experience

Experience building platforms for enterprise customers with complex governance and compliance requirements.
Knowledge of enterprise security requirements, compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001), and their architectural implications.
Experience with identity federation (OIDC, SAML, SCIM) and enterprise SSO integration at scale.
Understanding of enterprise billing complexity (contract management, usage-based pricing, revenue recognition).

Preferred

Experience at scale in developer tools, infrastructure software, or B2B SaaS companies.
Background with container technologies, Docker, Kubernetes, or developer productivity platforms.
Experience building billing platforms supporting multiple pricing models (seat-based, consumption, hybrid).
Track record of successfully migrating legacy systems while maintaining business continuity.
Experience with data platform architecture (real-time streaming, data warehousing, analytics).
Knowledge of FinOps and large-scale infrastructure cost optimization.
Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field.
External recognition as a technical leader (conference speaking, publications, open-source contributions).

Key Success Metrics

Platform Leverage & Velocity

Product teams launch enterprise-ready features in <2 weeks by leveraging platform capabilities.
New product SKUs are launched in weeks via the Billing Control Plane.
A single unified access control endpoint replaces fragmented APIs.

Business Enablement

Platform architecture enables $10M+ in enterprise revenue through unblocking governance capabilities.
Usage-based billing platform supports monetization for new AI and cloud products.
Billing accuracy and flexibility support complex enterprise contract structures.

Technical Excellence

Platform systems achieve 99.9%+ uptime for business-critical workflows.
Canonical data models eliminate conflicting metrics, improving business decision trust.
Infrastructure platform reduces new service deployment time from weeks to <1 day.

Organizational Impact

Recognition as the definitive technical authority on platform architecture at Docker.
Successful convergence of fragmented systems, reducing technical debt and operational burden.
Development of multiple Staff and Principal engineers capable of owning major platform domains.

Additional Information

Docker considers sponsorship on a case-by-case basis. We utilize Covey for hiring and promotional processes in NYC.

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

Perks

Freedom and flexibility to fit work around your life.
Designated quarterly Whaleness Days plus an end-of-year Whaleness break.
Home office setup allowance.
16 weeks of paid Parental leave (after 6 months of employment).
Technology stipend ($100 USD net/month).
Generous PTO plan.
Training stipend for conferences, courses, and classes.
Equity in a growing start-up.
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.

Compensation Range: $219K - $352K },metadescription:

Senior Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure

Job summary

Work model