Senior Software Engineer — Container Images & Security

rapidfortinc; United States; Remote; USD 130,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first

Equity

Health insurance

Dental

Vision

Job summary

RapidFort Inc. is seeking a Senior DevSecOps Engineer to own the lifecycle of secure, production-ready container images—from building lean images to remediating CVEs and validating compatibility.

You will combine Linux systems engineering, security, and automation, partnering with platform and security teams to make image delivery repeatable across distributions and runtimes. You will work to support federal customers in a remote, full-time capacity, collaborating with engineering teams to set

Qualifications

• At least 5 years of relevant software, Linux, platform, DevSecOps, or reliability engineering experience.
• Strong Linux knowledge across distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, or RHEL, and familiarity with package managers such as apt, apk, yum/dnf, or rpm.
• Experience optimizing Docker images, including multi-stage builds, layers, and container filesystems.
• Demonstrated ability to investigate and remediate CVEs in packages and images, then validate fixes.
• Programming or scripting skills in Python, Go, or Bash, plus experience maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Hands-on use of vulnerability scanners and SBOM generation, and a solid grasp of Kubernetes and container lifecycles.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain hardened images for Linux distributions and application runtimes, reducing unnecessary packages and attack surface.
• Investigate vulnerabilities in operating system packages, libraries, and runtimes; apply fixes, rebuild images, and verify functionality.
• Diagnose dependency, build, and runtime compatibility problems while preserving application behavior.
• Automate image building, scanning, testing, remediation, versioning, and publishing; maintain release metadata and traceability.
• Generate and maintain software bills of materials, and validate image reproducibility and Kubernetes compatibility.
• Document image use and work with engineering teams to set hardening standards and improve delivery quality.

Skills

Python

Go

Bash

CI/CD pipelines

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

SBOM generation

Job description

Role overview

Own the lifecycle of secure, production-ready container images, from building lean images to remediating vulnerabilities and validating application compatibility. You’ll combine Linux systems engineering, security work, and automation, partnering with platform and security teams to make image delivery repeatable across distributions and runtimes. This is a remote full-time role requiring U.S. citizenship because of work supporting federal customers.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain hardened images for Linux distributions and application runtimes, reducing unnecessary packages and attack surface.
• Investigate vulnerabilities in operating system packages, libraries, and runtimes; apply fixes, rebuild images, and verify functionality.
• Diagnose dependency, build, and runtime compatibility problems while preserving application behavior.
• Automate image building, scanning, testing, remediation, versioning, and publishing; maintain release metadata and traceability.
• Generate and maintain software bills of materials, and validate image reproducibility and Kubernetes compatibility.
• Document image use and work with engineering teams to set hardening standards and improve delivery quality.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of relevant software, Linux, platform, DevSecOps, or reliability engineering experience.
• Strong Linux knowledge across distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, or RHEL, and familiarity with package managers such as apt, apk, yum/dnf, or rpm.
• Experience optimizing Docker images, including multi-stage builds, layers, and container filesystems.
• Demonstrated ability to investigate and remediate CVEs in packages and images, then validate fixes.
• Programming or scripting skills in Python, Go, or Bash, plus experience maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Hands-on use of vulnerability scanners and SBOM generation, and a solid grasp of Kubernetes and container lifecycles.

Nice to have

• Experience with distroless images, building Linux packages from source, or backporting security fixes.
• Familiarity with SPDX, CycloneDX, Syft, image signing and provenance tools, or SLSA.
• Exposure to container registries, Helm, Kustomize, GitOps, or infrastructure-as-code.

Benefits and work setup

Remote-first work, equity participation, and health, dental, and vision coverage are listed.

The stated base salary range is $130,000–$200,000, depending on experience and technical depth.