Docker, Inc

Docker, Inc

Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · Principal · Full-time

Sponsorship not specified$198k-$319kDetected 1 day ago
TypeScriptPythonGoAWSGCPAzureCloud PlatformsDockerKubernetesCI/CDLLMsAgentic AICybersecuritySupply ChainLeadershipCommunicationMentoring

Stay score

odds of building a lasting career here

59Sponsors, lottery-bound
Cap-exempt (no lottery)0
Sponsors this role80
Entry-level history0
PERM / green-card track0
Lottery odds (Level IV)94
Fits your clock70

Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.

Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.

Personalize to your clock →

H-1B wage level

the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry

Level III · 3×
Level I$137,0931 entry
Level II$165,1312 entries
Level III$193,1493 entries
Level IV$221,1874 entries

$23,187 more — $221,187 — moves this role to Level IV and 4 lottery entries. That figure is inside the range the employer already advertised.

Based on the DOL prevailing wage for this occupation and worksite, a base salary of $221,187 would place this position at wage Level IV. That figure is within the posted range, and I'd like to target it. This role classifies under "Software Developers" for prevailing-wage purposes.

DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Software Developers (15-1252) · San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.

Employer immigration record

from this employer's Department of Labor filings

Files H-1B transfers

5 transfer filings in the last year, covering 5 workers. Median labor-condition decision: 7 days. An employer that already files transfers is one that can take over an existing H-1B.

Sourced from Department of Labor LCA, PERM and prevailing-wage disclosure data. Employer matching is by name, so figures may be split across an employer's legal entities. Absence of a filing means none appears in our copy of the data, not that none exists.

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About the role

  • 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.
  • You work closely with Docker Solutions Architects to evolve existing patterns, and Docker Product and Engineering to turn new learnings into reusable patterns and product capabilities.
  • FDE experience directly influences the roadmap.

Responsibilities

  • Embed with customer engineering teams to design, build, and ship solutions from first prototype through stable production rollout. Use existing Docker products and patterns when possible, invent, prototype and validate innovative solutions when necessary.
  • Own technical delivery on your engagements: scope the work, sequence it, make trade-offs between speed and quality, remove blockers early, and contribute directly to code whenever progress depends on it.
  • Partner with customer security and platform teams to get agentic workloads through architecture review, threat modeling, and change control.
  • Partner with Solutions Architecture and the Field
  • Support the field with technical depth during proofs of concept, escalations, and expansion conversations when a working build is the fastest path to a customer adoption.
  • Mentor and lead other Forward Deployed Engineers, and participate in hiring loops to grow the team.
  • Maintain deep, current knowledge of the agentic AI stack: LLMs, APIs, MCP, coding agents, model and harness evaluation approaches, performance and quality thresholds, deployment patterns.
  • 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.
  • Flexibility that fits your life - We trust you to manage your schedule while delivering great work.
  • We are committed to building a team that reflects a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

Requirements

  • Technical leadership across multiple engagements, teams, or domains, with a proven ability to set delivery standards, define repeatable patterns, and influence product direction through field evidence.
  • Working knowledge of software supply chain security: SBOMs, image signing and attestation, vulnerability management, minimal and hardened base images, and secure CI/CD.
  • Proven track record of technical mentorship and of raising the bar for the engineers around you.
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • Experience with Docker Hardened Images, Docker Scout, MCP Gateway, MCP Toolkit, Docker Sandboxes, or Docker Model Runner.
  • Experience deploying and operating coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or similar) in team or enterprise settings.
  • Prior experience founding or scaling a Forward Deployed Engineering or Professional Services practice.
  • Required
  • 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 4+ years in a customer-facing technical role such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Professional Services Engineer, or Software Engineer with consulting or technical founder experience.
  • Expert production coding skills in Go, Python, or TypeScript, with a track record of shipping and operating software that other people depend on and of leading technical design reviews.
  • Deep, hands-on Docker expertise: Dockerfiles and multi-stage builds, Docker Compose, image and registry operations, container networking and storage, and container security fundamentals.
  • Hands-on experience building with LLMs and agents in production, including tool use and function calling, the Model Context Protocol (MCP server and client implementation), prompt and context engineering, and evaluation of agent behavior.
  • Experience integrating with enterprise systems: identity providers (Okta, Entra ID, LDAP/Active Directory), federated identity protocols (OIDC, SAML), secrets managers, Kubernetes, and at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, GCP).
  • Ability to scope and deliver complex work in ambiguous, fast-moving customer environments, making sound trade-offs between scope, speed, and quality.
  • Excellent communication skills with engineers, security and platform teams, and executive stakeholders, with a low-ego, collaborative approach and the ability to lead through influence rather than authority.
  • High agency and comfort operating autonomously in distributed, remote-first teams.
  • Travel to customer sites to build in person with customer teams, estimated at up to 50%.

Compensation

  • Compensation & Equity

Benefits

  • 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.
  • Experience with air-gapped, regulated, or compliance-driven environments in financial services, healthcare, government, or similar sectors.

Company info

  • Build in Production with Customers
  • Deliver working technical artifacts to customers: custom MCP servers with tightly integrated Docker Sandbox environments for coding agents and containerized agents
  • Help customers define controls to enable them to adopt agentic AI to solve their unique business problems without compromising security, compliance, data sovereignty or end-user experience.
  • Establish quality and performance standards for customers and work closely with Docker Product and Engineering to quickly address issues that fall outside of established thresholds
  • Deliver working technical artifacts to customers: custom MCP servers with tightly integrated Docker Sandbox environments for coding agents and containerized agents; Docker Compose definitions for multi-agent harnesses and model-backed applications; Hardened Image standardization and migration; New tools that unblock customer progress.
  • As part of Docker Engineering FDEs work closely with Product and Engineering teams to fold FDE innovations, learnings, and design patterns into existing or new products and services.
  • Work with Customers, Product and Engineering to establish quality and performance thresholds, ensuring customer environments meet them consistently, and responding quickly and decisively when they don't.
  • Deliver data-driven and actionable feedback to Product and Engineering: what works well; what does not; what customers are asking for; and what blocks their adoption and forward progress.
  • Define the FDE engagement model, delivery standards, and quality bar, and codify them so that engagements are consistent across customers, regions, and delivery partners.
  • Act as the senior technical escalation point on the hardest problems impacting your customers. Every incident is an opportunity to improve Docker products and services.

Equal opportunity

  • equal opportunity employer.

Visa & Work Authorization

  • Docker considers visa sponsorship on a case-by-case basis based on business needs.
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This listing is sourced directly from Docker, Inc's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.