Staff Software Engineer, AI Developer Tools

Location: San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA Workplace: Remote 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. _______________________________________________________________________ Docker is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to set the technical direction for key parts of our AI Developer Tools team. You will work at the intersection of AI, developer experience, and platform engineering, building the AI-powered tools and the platform that let teams across Docker prototype, deploy, and scale their own AI developer tools. As a Staff Engineer you will own the technical design and delivery for two areas: AI-Powered Developer Tools. Design and build AI agents and tools that accelerate developer productivity, surface observability insights, and automate operational reviews. You will help teams adopt an AI-native way of working and speed up adoption of tools such as Claude Code and Codex. Examples include AI-powered code review and refactoring assistants, automated test generators and local environment setup tools, deployment pipeline diagnostic agents, and agents that simplify on-call work during incidents. Self-Service AI Developer Tools Platform. Design and build the platform infrastructure that lets product and platform teams across Docker unblock themselves by prototyping, building, and deploying their own AI developer tools. You will set the patterns and standards that let teams experiment, iterate quickly, and graduate successful prototypes into production-ready services. You will report to the Senior Manager, AI Developer Tools, and work closely with the team's Principal engineers, engineering leadership, product engineering teams, and platform teams across Docker. WHAT WOULD MAKE SOMEONE SUCCESSFUL IN THIS ROLE You are a hands-on technical leader who works well at the intersection of AI, developer experience, and platform engineering. You have shipped production systems built on LLMs and AI agents, and you can explain what worked and what did not. You think in platforms: you design something once so that several teams can move faster. You have clear opinions about what makes a developer tool good, and sound judgment about when to build, when to integrate, and when not to do either. You are comfortable in a fast-moving AI landscape and balance technical quality with shipping iteratively. Before you design, you ask about scale, users, and constraints rather than assuming them. You lead through influence and mentorship, and the engineers around you get better because you are on the team. RESPONSIBILITIES Technical Leadership and Architecture - Set technical direction and own the architecture for AI-powered developer tools and the self-service platform within the team's roadmap - Turn ambiguous problems into clear requirements, plans, and staged decisions. Ask about scale, users, and constraints before designing, and write down your assumptions - Establish patterns, standards, and best practices for LLM integration, agent development, and production AI systems that the team and partner teams adopt - Shape platform capabilities including deployment frameworks (ArgoCD/GitOps), observability integration (Grafana), security controls, and operational tooling for AI developer tools - Design reliable, scalable infrastructure for hosting AI agents and developer tools - Recommend AI technology choices, LLM provider strategies, and agent orchestration approaches, and make the trade-offs explicit - Work with the Senior Manager and the team's Principal engineers to align technical decisions with business goals Systems Design and Implementation - Design, build, and operate production AI agents for developer productivity, including code review assistants, test generators, deployment diagnostics, and incident response automation - Build self-service platform capabilities that reduce time-to-production for new AI tools from weeks to days - Build systems that speed up adoption of AI-native development tools (Claude Code, Codex) across Docker's engineering organization - Set and meet reliability, security, and performance standards for AI systems, including SLOs, monitoring, incident response, and cost management - Design integrations between AI developer tools and existing developer infrastructure such as CI/CD pipelines, observability platforms, and deployment systems - Take part in the team's on-call rotation and use what you learn to improve alerts, runbooks, and tooling Strategic Impact and Innovation - Evaluate emerging AI/LLM technologies, developer tooling trends, and agent frameworks, and recommend what Docker should adopt and what it should not build - Define how we measure AI tool effectiveness, including adoption, productivity gains, and developer satisfaction - Improve AI tool performance, cost efficiency, and developer experience through architectural improvements - Contribute to the technical approach for hardening proven internal tools so other teams across Docker can adopt them - Lead cross-team technical delivery, surface risks early, and work with Infrastructure, Security, and Data on shared standards Leadership and Mentorship - Mentor senior engineers on AI/LLM integration patterns, agent development, and platform engineering practices - Lead design reviews and raise the quality of design and code reviews across the team - Create reusable patterns, documentation, and architectural decision records (ADRs) that other engineers build on - Help the team turn good individual AI-assisted engineering practice into shared workflows and controls - 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. QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED - 8+ years of software engineering experience, with demonstrated technical leadership on production systems at scale - Hands-on production experience building LLM-powered applications, AI agents, or AI-assisted developer tools - Strong understanding of LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, and others), prompt engineering, agent orchestration frameworks, and practical uses of AI in software development workflows - Track record of designing and building scalable distributed systems and developer-facing platforms - Production experience with cloud-native infrastructure, including Kubernetes, GitOps deployment patterns, observability systems, and CI/CD pipelines - Proficiency in Go (preferred), Rust, Java, or Python, with strong software engineering fundamentals - Experience designing developer tools, platform systems, or internal tools that other teams rely on - Track record of clarifying requirements and constraints with stakeholders before committing to a design - Track record of leading complex initiatives that crossed team boundaries, and of influencing without direct authority - Strong product and platform judgment: you weigh business outcomes, developer experience, and technical trade-offs - Clear written and spoken communication suited to a remote, async-first company - Track record of mentoring other experienced engineers - Ownership mentality with a bias for action and iterative delivery in ambiguous, fast-moving environments - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience PREFERRED - Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or similar AI agent integration standards - Background in developer productivity, DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering - Contributions to open source AI tools, developer tooling, or platform engineering projects - Experience evolving an internal platform or tool into a widely adopted, production-grade service - Knowledge of security, compliance, and operational practices for production AI systems - Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi) and major cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) WHAT TO EXPECT FIRST 30 DAYS - Build context on Docker's current AI and developer tooling landscape, including existing AI experiments, LLM provider relationships, and architecture decisions to date - Meet the Senior Manager, the team's Principal engineers, engineering leadership, and key stakeholders in product engineering to understand needs, pain points, and constraints - Review existing AI tool prototypes and internal experiments to learn what is working and what is not - Get hands-on with the team's services and ship a useful production change - Shadow on-call and learn the operational profile of the team's services - Work with the Senior Manager to agree on initial technical priorities FIRST 90 DAYS - Lead the technical framing and delivery plan for one significant problem, from requirements through to production - Document the architecture, technology choices, and integration patterns for that work, including ADRs - Ship a production AI developer tool that sets patterns the team can reuse (for example an AI-powered code review agent, a deployment diagnostic agent, or an on-call assistant) - Contribute to the technical foundations of the self-service platform: deployment pipeline, observability integration, security controls, and cost management - Lead design reviews for your area of the roadmap and begin mentoring other engineers - Take part in the on-call rotation FIRST YEAR OUTLOOK - Be the trusted technical lead for your area of AI Developer Tools, and a sought-after partner for teams across Docker - Deliver at least one material outcome that spans multiple teams or systems - Have multiple production AI tools demonstrating value across Docker's engineering organization - Help build a self-service platform that lets multiple teams build, deploy, and operate their own AI tools with little friction - Define and instrument how the team measures AI tool adoption, effectiveness, and developer productivity impact - 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 United States: $170,350 – $275,550 + equity ______________________________________________________________________ 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. ______________________________________________________________________ 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