Forward Deployed Engineer - Docker/IIoT

Portainer.io; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Portainer.io in the United States is seeking an Edge Platform Engineer to operate and modernize a large industrial edge computing deployment. You’ll manage 100,000+ edge devices running Docker-based apps in real-world environments with intermittent connectivity and limited bandwidth.

You’ll collaborate with product and engineering teams on deployment automation, troubleshooting, and optimization of remote edge ecosystems, including IoT gateways and edge networking protocols such as MQTT and

Qualifications

• Experience with Docker and Docker Compose in production.
• Experience with IoT/IIoT environments and edge deployments.
• Experience supporting Linux in production and troubleshooting remotely.

Skills

Docker

IIoT

Linux Production

Edge Computing

Container Networking

Troubleshooting

Image Optimization

Remote Deployment

MQTT

Portainer

Tools

Portainer

MQTT

OPC-UA

Modbus

Docker

Shell scripting

Job description

We’re looking for a Edge Platform Engineer to help operate and modernize one of the world’s largest industrial edge computing deployments.

You’ll work with a fleet of more than 100,000 connected edge devices running Docker-based applications in challenging real-world environments where connectivity is intermittent, bandwidth is constrained, and devices may remain offline for extended periods.

This role combines Docker platform engineering, edge computing, networking, deployment automation, troubleshooting, and customer collaboration. You’ll work directly with enterprise customers and our engineering team to solve complex operational problems at scale.

If you’ve worked with industrial IoT, edge gateways, manufacturing systems, mining, energy, transportation, or other distributed edge environments, we’d love to hear from you.

What We’re Looking ForRequired

• Strong commercial experience with Docker and Docker Compose.
• Experience with IoT and Industrial IoT (IIoT)
• Experience supporting Linux systems in production.
• Experience deploying applications to remote or distributed edge environments.
• Experience operating systems across unreliable, high-latency, or bandwidth-constrained networks.
• Strong understanding of container networking.
• Experience in Edge Computing
• Experience troubleshooting production systems remotely.
• Familiarity with container image optimization and multi-stage Docker builds.
• Strong Linux troubleshooting skills.
• Excellent customer communication skills.
  Highly Desirable

Experience with one or more of:

• IoT gateways
• Manufacturing automation
• Connected vehicles
• Mining
• Energy
• Oil & Gas
• Utilities
• Retail edge deployments
• Smart factories
• Industrial networking

Experience with:

• Docker Swarm
• Portainer
• MQTT
• OPC-UA
• Modbus
• Edge gateways
• VPN technologies
• Reverse proxies
• mTLS
• Embedded Linux
• ARM devices
• Systemd
• Shell scripting
  What Makes Someone Successful

You’ll thrive if you enjoy solving problems like:

• Why didn’t a remote device receive its update?
• How do we safely update 100,000 devices without disrupting production?
• How can we reduce a 900MB update to 40MB?
• What happens when a device reconnects after being offline for three months?
• How do we deploy software across satellite or cellular networks with limited bandwidth?
• How do we detect unhealthy applications running on remote industrial gateways
  Why Join Us?

You’ll work on real-world engineering problems that exist at massive scale:

• 100,000+ edge devices
• Global industrial deployments
• Large enterprise customers
• Modern container technologies
• Direct collaboration with product engineering
• Opportunity to influence future platform capabilities