Staff Software Engineer, Agentic Platform

Job Description:

• Join Docker's Agentic Platform team to build the foundational infrastructure powering the next generation of AI-driven workflows.
• You'll be working on the core agent execution runtime, orchestration primitives, and the cloud infrastructure that keeps the Agentic Platform running 24/7.
• This is a high-ownership role: you won't just build systems, you'll run them, respond when they fail, and drive continuous improvement across the stack.
• This is a greenfield opportunity to shape how agents are built and operated at scale.
• You'll work alongside seasoned engineers, collaborating with partner teams across AI infrastructure, developer experience, and platform reliability.

Requirements:

• 8+ years of professional, hands-on, full-time software engineering experience in backend, infrastructure, or platform engineering.
• Cloud Platform Expertise (AWS/OCI/Azure/GCP): Proven, hands-on experience operating production services in AWS or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure compute, networking, managed services, IAM, and cost management. This is a must-have; the Agentic Platform is a cloud-native service running 24/7.
• Service Ownership in a Cloud Setting: You have owned production services end-to-end — on-call, incident response, SLO definition, and post-mortems. You don't just build; you run what you build.
• Distributed Systems Design: Deep understanding of fault tolerance, consistency, observability, and scalability in cloud-native environments
• Backend Engineering Proficiency: Strong proficiency in at least one backend language used for systems work — Go, Python, Rust, or Java
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strongly Preferred: Go: Professional proficiency in Go — Docker's primary language for backend systems.
• Infrastructure as Code: Experience with Terraform for cloud infrastructure provisioning and Helm for Kubernetes application packaging and deployment.
• Data Infrastructure: Experience with PostgreSQL and Redis / Pub-Sub patterns for state management, caching, and event-driven agent workflows.
• MCP & Agent Tooling: Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) server design and integration.
• Container & Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, or equivalent — especially in the context of agent sandboxing and secure code execution environments.
• AI-assisted development tools: Familiarity with Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, Windsurf, etc. and the developer personas using them.
• Agent Evaluation: Experience with LLM-as-judge frameworks, behavioral regression testing, and golden dataset management.
• Agent Systems Experience: Hands-on experience building or operating AI agent systems — including multi-agent orchestration, tool use, memory systems, or agent evaluation frameworks.
• Open Source: Contributions or community engagement on relevant open source projects.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

Benefits:

• 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