Principal Solutions Architect, Professional Services (West Coast Preferred)

Docker, Inc; United States; On-site; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first by design

Time off and PTO

Equity for all full-time employees

Technology stipend

Learning & development stipend

Job summary

Docker, Inc. seeks a Principal Solution Architect to build and scale its Professional Services practice.

You will architect reference patterns for self-hosted, air-gapped deployments and integrate them with the AI platform roadmap, working with product, marketing, and revenue teams. You will act as a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 customers, leading discovery, SOW scoping, and delivery oversight while coordinating with partners and SI teams to ensure successful engagements that drive revenue

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent experience.
• Strong experience architecting self-hosted and air-gapped deployments.
• Expertise in enterprise IAM and federation protocols (SAML, OIDC, SSO).
• Hands-on with MCP and AI toolchains in enterprise contexts.
• Deep knowledge of container security and software supply chains.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale the Professional Services Practice with reference architectures and collateral.
• Drive customer outcomes for enterprise deployments of Docker agentic solutions.
• Lead technical discovery and architecture engagements across enterprise layers.
• Architect and deliver self-hosted deployments including air-gapped environments.
• Direct delivery partners to ensure successful service engagements.

Skills

Enterprise architecture

Self-hosted deployments

Air-gapped deployments

RBAC & IAM

MCP familiarity

AI/ML workflows

Security

Stakeholder management

Delivery leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/EE or related

Tools

Kubernetes

SAML

OIDC

Okta/Azure AD

Job description

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 launching a Professional Services organization to accelerate customer success, reduce time-to-value, and drive enterprise adoption for agentic workloads. As a Principal Solution Architect, you'll play a critical role in building and scaling this function. You will join a team of seasoned experts with deep experience backed by Docker's unmatched reach across Fortune 500 companies.

This is a high-visibility role working directly with senior leadership across revenue, product, marketing, and partner organizations. You'll shape service strategy, drive cross-functional alignment, and deliver offerings that accelerate both services revenue and platform expansion.

You’ll serve as a trusted advisor to our largest and most strategic partners and enterprise customers, providing thought leadership on integrating Docker agentic solutions within enterprise environments.

Responsibilities

Build and Scale the Professional Services Practice

• Develop and codify repeatable reference architecture patterns across Docker's core use cases including self-hosted and air-gapped deployments, MCP (model context protocol)/AI agent environments, IDP integrations, and secure supply chain workflows so that engagements scale consistently across customers and partners.
• Translate reference architectures into customer-facing technical collateral, SOW templates, and success patterns that reduce scoping time and improve delivery consistency.
• Collaborate with product, marketing, and revenue teams to integrate services into GTM motions and align delivery to Docker's AI platform roadmap.
• Identify offerings that drive product expansion, renewals, and long-term customer value.
• Support Partnerships & Alliances in selecting, onboarding, and enabling technical integration partners, system integrators (SIs), and service delivery partners.

Drive Strategic Customer Outcomes

• Act as a trusted advisor to enterprise customers, helping them adopt modern patterns for containerization, AI workflows, and secure software supply chains.
• Lead technical discovery and architecture engagements that span enterprise integration layers
• Architect and deliver self-hosted Docker deployments within air-gapped, regulated, and complex enterprise environments including local image registry setup, offline toolchain configuration, and compliance-driven infrastructure design.
• Design and Guide customers through implementation of agentic AI toolchains, including MCP server/client architecture, tool orchestration, observability integration and secure deployment patterns aligned to Docker's AI platform.
• Position Docker as a strategic and thought leadership partner, influencing long-term technology adoption and investment decisions.
• Directly deliver or assign and oversee appropriate delivery partners to execute service engagements and ensure technical objectives are met.

Enable Cross-Functional Success

• Drive alignment and decision-making across multiple stakeholders and teams without direct reporting lines.
• Translate field insights including enterprise integration patterns, IDP/SSO friction points, observability gaps, and AI deployment challenges into actionable product and services strategy, roadmap, and partner capabilities.

Qualifications

Required

• 7+ years as a Professional Services Solution Architect, Technical Consultant, or similar role at a SaaS/infrastructure company or consulting firm.
• Demonstrated experience architecting and deploying self-hosted and air-gapped deployment architectures: local image registries, offline toolchain configuration, network-isolated Kubernetes clusters, and compliance-driven infrastructure constraints common in regulated industries.
• Enterprise integration experience across Identity Providers (Okta, Azure AD, LDAP/Active Directory) and federated identity protocols (OIDC, SAML, SSO), including RBAC design within complex, multi-tenant enterprise environments.
• Working knowledge of Model Context Protocol (MCP) and its application to agentic AI toolchains including MCP server/client architecture, tool and resource orchestration, and secure containerized deployment patterns.
• Hands-on experience with AI/ML workflows, LLM deployment, and agentic AI architectures in enterprise environments with awareness of Docker's AI platform roadmap including AI agent containerization, model provenance, and AI supply chain security.
• Deep understanding of container and software supply chain security: Docker Hardened Images (DHI), Secure Supply Chain (SSC), SBOM generation, image signing and attestation, vulnerability management, and runtime governance.
• Excellent facilitation and stakeholder management skills; able to lead executive-level architecture conversations and influence senior stakeholders without formal authority.
• Direct experience delivering high-quality services engagements that achieve customer value while meeting revenue and ARR growth targets within a revenue organization.
• Recognition by enterprise customers as a strategic technical advisor.

Bonus

• Experience architecting AI platforms in large enterprise environments LLM deployment pipelines, model provenance, artifact signing, and secure AI supply chain patterns.
• Background enabling system integrators, consultancies, or partner ecosystems.
• Consulting experience with Fortune 500 clients in highly regulated sectors such as financial services, healthcare, or government.
• Led AI security architecture engagements that addressed model provenance, artifact signing, and supply chain integrity for containerized AI workloads including secure MCP server deployment, tool and resource access controls, secrets management within agentic pipelines, and runtime isolation patterns for LLM-based applications.

What To Expect

First 30 Days

• Onboard to Docker's mission, values, and operating model.
• Deeply familiarize yourself with our product portfolio, AI platform roadmap, and strategic customers.
• Build strong partnerships with Product, Engineering, and Sales functions.
• Plug into the team's rhythm of business (standups, reviews, shadow customer engagements).

First 90 Days

• Scope, define SOWs, delivery, and oversight of customer service engagements.
• Participate in the creation of reference architectures for key use cases.
• Participate in initiatives to build out and improve the services department's offerings.

One-Year Outlook

• Successful delivery and oversight of customer service engagements.
• Contribute materially to the build-out of Docker's service offerings across AI, security, and enterprise integration practices.
• Institutionalize continuous improvement by providing field feedback including enterprise integration patterns, deployment blockers, and observability gaps to the product team.

Docker does not offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Compensation & Equity

Canada: CA$238,000– CA$340,000 + equity

United States: $171,500 – $245,00 + 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.