Principal Software Engineer, Networking (Seattle or SF Bay Area)

Role Overview

Principal Software Engineer, Networking (Seattle or SF Bay Area) will set the technical direction for the networking stack behind Docker Sandboxes. You’ll make architecture decisions that affect Docker’s broader product portfolio, enabling expansion into AI and security offerings.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and operate core networking services powering Docker Sandboxes across local laptops and public cloud environments
• Build scalable networking infrastructure for microVM orchestration, workload scheduling, and lifecycle management
• Develop high-performance networking components for data/control planes for multi-tenant agentic workloads
• Ensure network reliability, observability, and performance across Sandbox infrastructure
• Collaborate with product, platform, and security teams to deliver customer-focused capabilities
• Participate in architecture discussions, code reviews, and design documents
• Contribute to automation and CI/CD improvements across the deployment pipeline
• Debug and resolve production issues in distributed systems across local and public cloud
• Join an on-call rotation, respond to incidents, and drive continuous improvement in reliability/availability

Requirements

• 10+ years building and leading large-scale cloud/distributed systems, with a focus on networking foundations
• Track record of driving technical consensus and delivering high-quality infrastructure software at scale
• Experience with container/service mesh/networking and orchestration (microservices architecture, container networking, service mesh, policy enforcement, container orchestration)
• Strong hands-on knowledge of kernel and user-space networking, including Linux networking, OVS/OVN, DPDK, and eBPF
• Experience designing and operating highly available, secure, observable networking infrastructure
• Solid understanding of cloud infrastructure and scalability patterns across AWS, Azure, GCP, or OCI
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and infrastructure-as-code tooling
• Strong debugging/problem-solving skills in distributed environments
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills in remote, cross-functional teams

Nice to Have / Preferred Signals

• Technical leadership experience with a small team of engineers (providing direction and mentoring)

First 30–90 Days (What to Expect)

• First 30 days: Onboard with Sandbox infrastructure teams; learn Sandbox architecture and identify high-leverage opportunities and execution risks
• First 90 days: Develop a technical roadmap to address ongoing challenges (continuation of the plan is implied but not fully shown)