Senior Principal Engineer, Central Ops & Systems

Responsibilities

• Technical Vision & Strategic Planning
• Define and own the multi-year technical vision for Docker's Central Operations and Systems group, encompassing internal AI, developer tools, infrastructure, reliability, and corporate systems.
• Establish strategic plans and objectives for major initiatives, making architectural decisions that ensure Docker's business objectives are met.
• Contribute to and drive the strategic vision in collaboration with engineering leadership, translating organizational strategy into technical roadmaps that span multiple teams and time horizons
• Identify and prioritize investments that provide maximum leverage—capabilities built once that enable rapid adoption and increase productivity across the employee base
• Develop architectural principles and standards that guide technical decisions across the Central Operations and Systems group and influence product engineering teams
• Anticipate future business needs and ensure platform architecture provides the flexibility to support Docker's evolving commercial models
• Cross-Company Technical Leadership
• Lead technical vision and implementation for large cross-company programs that require coordination across all Docker teams
• Architect the Docker SDLC "Golden Path": how Dockhands build, manage and deploy systems and software, as applicable
• Drive convergence of fragmented systems across Docker—replacing product-specific implementations with shared platform capabilities
• 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
• Infrastructure & Developer Experience Architecture
• Define the infrastructure platform vision that removes infrastructure as a bottleneck to innovation—enabling 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 initiatives—rapid 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 Docker organization to drive operations and strategy
• Mentor and develop Staff and Principal engineers, raising the technical bar across the organization
• Represent Docker's platform architecture and AI adoption 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 Docker's 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.

Required

Preferred

Key Success Metrics

Posting Information

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.
• #LI-REMOTE