Staff Software Engineer (Guarded Containers)

chainguard; United States; Remote; USD 205,000 - 231,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-friendly culture

Annual stipends for coworking/phone/in

Stock options

Health, Vision, Dental coverage

Generous paid time off

Parental leave

Job summary

Chainguard is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to set technical direction for a flagship hardened container image product. You will shape roadmap, mentor engineers, and lead cross-team initiatives to turn ambitious ideas into shipped features.

You will own architecture decisions, drive major new features, and collaborate with product and engineering leadership to balance customer impact with scalability and maintainability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years in software development with fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, compilers, Makefiles, and toolchains.
• Strong product mindset to translate ambiguous goals into concrete technical plans.
• Proven track record leading complex, multi-engineer initiatives end to end.
• Deep expertise with containers, container registries, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Experience designing reusable Terraform or other Infrastructure-as-Code modules at scale.
• Strong experience writing services or tools in Go.
• Demonstrated mentorship ability and excellent communication in a remote setting.

Responsibilities

• Architect and drive major new features and services that expand the value of the core container image product.
• Partner with product, design, and engineering leadership to shape roadmap and scope high-impact initiatives.
• Set technical direction and make architectural decisions that balance customer impact, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
• Lead complex, cross-cutting projects from concept to production, often spanning multiple engineers or teams.
• Mentor engineers and serve as a technical role model for design, build, and shipping practices.
• Drive improvements to the tools and services that support a growing image build system.

Skills

Containers & DevOps

Go programming

Architecture & leadership

Cross-team collaboration

CS fundamentals

IaC / Terraform

Mentorship

Remote communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Go tooling

Job description

Role overview

Take a product-driven, feature-development role on the team responsible for a flagship hardened container image product. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will set technical direction for major new capabilities, partner with product and engineering leadership to turn ambitious ideas into shipped features, and multiply the team's output through mentorship and technical leadership. The work is feature-first rather than maintenance, with significant influence over roadmap and architecture.

Responsibilities

• Architect and drive major new features and services that expand the value of the core container image product.
• Partner with product, design, and engineering leadership to shape roadmap and scope high-impact initiatives.
• Set technical direction and make architectural decisions that balance customer impact, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
• Lead complex, cross-cutting projects from concept to production, often spanning multiple engineers or teams.
• Mentor engineers and serve as a technical role model for design, build, and shipping practices.
• Drive improvements to the tools and services that support a growing image build system.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Ten or more years in software development with deep fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, compilers, Makefiles, and toolchains.
• Strong product mindset with the ability to translate ambiguous goals into concrete technical plans.
• Track record of leading complex, multi-engineer or cross-team technical initiatives end to end.
• Deep expertise with containers, container registries, Docker, Kubernetes, and the broader ecosystem.
• Experience designing reusable Terraform or other Infrastructure-as-Code modules at scale.
• Strong experience writing services or tools in Go.
• Demonstrated mentorship ability and excellent communication in a remote setting.

Nice to have

• Author or contributor to open-source projects.

Benefits and work setup

• Base salary range of $205,000–$231,000 USD.
• Remote-first culture with team meetups, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking, phone, and internet.
• Stock options with a 10-year exercise window and secondary offering participation.
• 100% covered health, vision, and dental premiums for employees and dependents.
• Flexible paid time off and 18 weeks paid parental leave for birthing parents, 12 weeks for non-birthing parents.