Senior Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure

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 worlds 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.

Docker is seeking a Senior Principal Engineer to serve as the technical visionary and architect for our Bridge organizationthe foundational platform that powers accounts billing data developer tools and enterprise governance across all Docker products. This is one of the most impactful individual contributor roles at Docker responsible for defining and driving the technical strategy that enables Dockers transformation from a collection of individual products into a unified enterprise platform capable of supporting our next phase of growth.

As Senior Principal Engineer you will establish strategic technical plans that span multiple engineering organizations make critical architectural decisions that affect Dockers entire product portfolio and drive execution of cross-company programs that directly enable revenue generation. Youll work at the intersection of Accounts Billing Data Platform Infrastructure Developer Tools and Enterprise Governance ensuring these foundational systems work together seamlessly to support Dockers business model evolution from seat-based to usage-based pricing our expansion into AI and security products and our growth from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of enterprise customers.

This role requires someone who combines deep technical expertise across multiple domains with the business acumen to translate Dockers commercial strategy into platform capabilities. Youll be recognized across Docker as the definitive expert on platform architecture consulted by executives on strategic technical decisions and responsible for ensuring that every product team can launch enterprise-ready features rapidly because the platform handles the complexity underneath.

Technical Vision & Strategic Planning

• Define and own the multi-year technical vision for Dockers foundational platform encompassing accounts billing data enterprise governance and infrastructure

• Establish strategic plans and objectives for major platform initiatives making architectural decisions that ensure effective achievement of Dockers business objectives

• Contribute to and drive the strategic vision in collaboration with the VP of Engineering translating organizational strategy into technical roadmaps that span multiple teams and years

• Identify and prioritize platform investments that provide maximum leveragecapabilities built once that enable rapid iteration across all Docker products

• Develop architectural principles and standards that guide technical decisions across the Bridge organization and influence product engineering teams

• Anticipate future business needs and ensure platform architecture provides the flexibility to support Dockers evolving commercial models

Cross-Company Technical Leadership

• Lead large cross-company programs that require coordination across Desktop Hub AI Security Cloud and Platform teams

• Architect the unified platform interfaces (Control Planes) that enable product teams to answer canonical questions like Can this user access this feature or How much has this organization consumed without understanding underlying complexity

• Drive convergence of fragmented systems across Dockerreplacing product-specific implementations with shared platform capabilities for authentication authorization billing and observability

• Establish technical contracts between platform and product teams that enable independent velocity while ensuring consistency and reliability

• Lead architectural reviews for major initiatives across Docker ensuring alignment with platform strategy and long-term maintainability

• Proactively identify and solve problems that impact critical areas of the business before they become blockers

Billing & Monetization Platform Architecture

• Architect the Billing Control Plane that enables Docker to launch new product SKUs in weeks instead of months

• Design the Usage-Based Billing platform that supports sophisticated pricing models combining base fees per-seat charges consumption pricing and volume discounts

• Ensure billing architecture supports Dockers commercial flexibilityenabling bundle pricing enterprise contract structures and rapid pricing experimentation

• Define the metering infrastructure where products simply report usage events and the platform handles aggregation rating invoicing and revenue recognition

• Architect billing systems that scale to support Dockers growth while maintaining the accuracy and audibility that enterprise customers and finance require

Accounts & Identity Platform Architecture

• Design the metadata-driven identity platform that serves as the single source of truth for authentication authorization and access control across all Docker products

• Architect account infrastructure that supports Dockers enterprise requirementsdomain-based account ownership organization lifecycle management and namespace separation

• Define the Centralized Access Control Service that becomes the standard authorization point for all Docker products replacing fragmented team-specific solutions

• Ensure identity architecture supports both consumer simplicity and enterprise complexityfrom individual developers to organizations with thousands of managed accounts

• Design migration paths that transition millions of existing users seamlessly while introducing new capabilities progressively

Enterprise Governance Platform Architecture

• Architect the Unified Internal Access Control Endpoint that abstracts entitlements permissions settings policies and feature flags into a single source of truth for all product teams

• Design the Enterprise Command Center architecture that provides consolidated administrative experience across all Docker products

• Define group management and RBAC architecture that supports global group and user-level policy scoping with IdP synchronization

• Architect high-volume audit logging infrastructure and observability platform that meets enterprise compliance requirements (SOC 2 ISO 27001) and integrates with enterprise SIEM tools

• Ensure governance architecture enables Docker to launch any new product enterprise-ready from day one with baseline governance controls

Data Platform Architecture

• Define canonical data models that serve as the foundation for analytics reporting and machine learning across Docker

• Architect real-time streaming infrastructure that enables immediate reactions to customer behaviorusage spikes security anomalies expansion opportunities

• Design self-service data capabilities that democratize access while maintaining governance and accuracy

• Ensure data architecture supports both operational needs (real-time dashboards alerts) and analytical needs (business intelligence forecasting)

• Drive convergence to eliminate conflicting metrics that undermine trust in business decisions

Infrastructure & Developer Experience Architecture

• Define the infrastructure platform vision that removes infrastructure as a bottleneck to innovationenabling teams to deploy experimental services in minutes not weeks

• Architect standardized deployment patterns that encode best practices for security scaling monitoring and reliability

• Design infrastructure that specifically supports AI and agent initiativesrapid deployment programmatic environment creation consistent APIs

• Establish observability standards that provide distributed tracing metrics log aggregation and error tracking out of the box for every service

• Drive cost optimization across platform infrastructure while maintaining performance and reliability standards

Technical Excellence & Influence

• Work with senior managers and directors across the Bridge organization to drive operations and strategy

• Mentor and develop Staff and Principal engineers raising the technical bar across the organization

• Represent Dockers platform architecture externally through blog posts conference talks and technical community engagement

• Participate in executive-level discussions on technical strategy providing architectural perspective on business decisions

• Drive build-vs-buy decisions for critical platform components evaluating vendor solutions against Dockers specific requirements

• This role may require participation in an on-call rotation to provide support outside of standard business hours including evenings weekends and holidays as needed.

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 serving millions of users and thousands of enterprise customers

• Deep expertise in at least two of: identity/access management systems billing/monetization platforms data platforms or cloud infrastructure

• Broad working knowledge across all platform domains with ability to make sound architectural decisions spanning multiple areas

• Expert-level understanding of API design service architecture and system integration patterns at scale

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS GCP or Azure) and modern infrastructure patterns (Kubernetes service mesh infrastructure-as-code)

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science Engineering or a related field or equivalent practical experience

Strategic & Business Impact

• Track record of establishing strategic technical plans that directly 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 that provide maximum platform leverage

• Understanding of SaaS business models enterprise sales cycles and how platform capabilities influence commercial success

• Experience making build-vs-buy decisions for critical platform components

Leadership & Influence

• Proven ability to drive large cross-company technical programs requiring coordination across multiple engineering organizations

• Experience working with VPs and executives to set and execute technical strategy

• Track record of influencing technical direction without direct authoritybuilding consensus across teams with different priorities

• Strong communication skills with 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 that serve 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 complexitycontract management usage-based pricing revenue recognition

• Experience at developer tools infrastructure software or B2B SaaS companies at significant scale

• Background with container technologies Docker Kubernetes or developer productivity platforms

• Experience building billing platforms that support multiple pricing models (seat-based consumption hybrid)

• Track record of successfully migrating legacy systems while maintaining business continuity

• Experience with data platform architecture including real-time streaming data warehousing and analytics

• Knowledge of FinOps and infrastructure cost optimization at scale

• Advanced degree in Computer Science Engineering or related technical field

• External recognition as a technical leader (conference speaking publications open source contributions)

Platform Leverage & Velocity

• Product teams can launch enterprise-ready features in <2 weeks (vs. 6 months today) by leveraging platform capabilities

• New product SKUs can be created and launched in weeks instead of months through Billing Control Plane

• Single unified access control endpoint replaces 5 fragmented APIs that product teams currently integrate

Business Enablement

• Platform architecture directly enables $10M in enterprise revenue through governance capabilities that unblock deals

• Usage-based billing platform supports new AI and cloud product monetization models

• Billing accuracy and flexibility supports complex enterprise contract structures that Sales requires

Technical Excellence

• Platform systems achieve 99.9% uptime for business-critical workflows

• Canonical data models eliminate conflicting metrics that undermine business decisions

• Infrastructure platform reduces deployment time for new services from 2-4 weeks to <1 day

Organizational Impact

• Recognized across Docker as the definitive technical authority on platform architecture

• Successfully drive convergence of fragmented systems reducing technical debt and operational burden

• Develop multiple Staff and Principal engineers who can own major platform domains

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

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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Required Experience:

Staff IC