# Principal Forward Deployed Engineer
**Company:** [Docker](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/docker)
As a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer at Docker, you'll embed directly with strategic enterprise customers to architect, build, and deploy production-grade AI agent and containerized application solutions. This senior technical leadership role combines hands-on software engineering with customer problem-solving, requiring deep expertise in containerization, LLM/agentic AI systems, and enterprise infrastructure integration across 10+ years of software engineering experience with 4+ years of customer-facing technical delivery roles.
**Role:** Principal Forward Deployed Engineer
**Seniority:** Principal
**Locations:** England
**Remote:** yes
**Salary:** 121000–198000 USD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/docker/1d33a956-a03f-48fb-8b80-7ddce36c2636)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/docker/principal-forward-deployed-engineer-1d33a956
---
## Responsibilities

- Embedded Customer Technical Delivery: Embed directly with customer engineering teams to design, build, and ship production solutions from prototype through stable production rollout. Deliver working technical artifacts including custom MCP servers with Docker Sandbox environments, Docker Compose definitions for multi-agent harnesses, hardened image standardization, and innovative tooling that unblocks customer progress. Own complete technical scope from discovery and architecture through implementation and production deployment.
- AI Adoption Governance and Security: Translate customer security, compliance, and platform requirements into concrete technical implementation plans. Help customers define controls for safe agentic AI adoption without compromising security, compliance, data sovereignty, or experience. Partner with customer security teams on architecture review, threat modeling, and change control. Establish and maintain quality and performance standards, working with Docker Product and Engineering to address issues outside established thresholds.
- Enterprise Systems Integration: Integrate Docker's AI platform with customer ecosystems including identity providers (OIDC, SAML, SSO), secrets management systems, private and air-gapped registries, Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tooling. Design solutions that work seamlessly within existing enterprise security and infrastructure patterns while maintaining Docker's containerization and isolation benefits.
- Solutions Architecture Collaboration: Work closely with Solutions Architects to enable off-the-shelf solutions when possible while providing technical expertise and leadership for bespoke implementations. Feed implementation learnings back into reference architectures, SOW templates, and success patterns. Support the sales field with technical depth during proofs of concept, escalations, and expansion conversations, leveraging working builds as the fastest path to customer adoption.
- Product and Engineering Feedback Loop: Act as the voice of the customer, delivering data-driven and actionable feedback to Product and Engineering teams on what works well, what doesn't, customer requests, and blockers to adoption. Fold FDE innovations, learnings, and design patterns into existing or new Docker products and services. Work across teams to establish quality thresholds and ensure consistent performance, with every incident treated as an opportunity to improve Docker offerings.
- Technical Leadership and Team Development: Define FDE engagement models, delivery standards, and quality bars, codifying them for consistency across customers, regions, and partners. Mentor and lead other Forward Deployed Engineers while participating in hiring to grow the practice. Serve as the senior technical escalation point on the hardest problems impacting customers. Maintain deep, current knowledge of the agentic AI stack including LLMs, APIs, MCP, coding agents, and deployment patterns.
- On-Call Support and Operational Excellence: Participate in on-call rotation to provide support outside standard business hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays. Travel to customer sites for in-person technical collaboration, estimated at up to 50% of time. Establish incident response patterns and turn production issues into opportunities for Docker product and service improvements across the customer base.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Computer Science or Engineering Degree","description":"Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. Equivalent practical experience and demonstrated technical expertise can substitute for formal degree requirements."}
- {"name":"Agentic AI Stack Knowledge","description":"Maintained deep, current knowledge of the agentic AI stack including LLMs, APIs, MCP specifications, coding agents, model and harness evaluation approaches, performance and quality thresholds, and production deployment patterns."}

### technical

- {"name":"Expert Production Coding","description":"Production-grade expertise in at least one of Go, Python, or TypeScript with a proven track record of shipping and operating software at scale that others depend on. Demonstrated ability to lead technical design reviews and make sound architectural decisions in complex systems."}
- {"name":"Deep Docker Containerization Expertise","description":"Hands-on mastery of Dockerfiles and multi-stage builds, Docker Compose orchestration, image and registry operations, container networking and storage, and container security fundamentals. Experience with Docker Hardened Images, Docker Scout for image analysis, and Docker Sandboxes for secure code execution."}
- {"name":"LLM and Agentic AI Systems","description":"Production experience building with large language models and autonomous agents including tool use and function calling patterns, Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and client implementation, prompt and context engineering, and evaluation of agent behavior for reliability and performance."}
- {"name":"Software Supply Chain Security","description":"Working knowledge of SBOMs (Software Bill of Materials), image signing and attestation, vulnerability management, minimal and hardened base images, and secure CI/CD pipeline design and enforcement across enterprise environments."}
- {"name":"Enterprise Systems Integration","description":"Hands-on experience integrating with identity providers (Okta, Entra ID, LDAP/Active Directory), federated identity protocols (OIDC, SAML), secrets management systems, Kubernetes orchestration, and at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP)."}
- {"name":"Complex Problem Scoping and Delivery","description":"Proven ability to scope and deliver complex, ambiguous work in fast-moving customer environments. Skilled at making sound trade-offs between scope, speed, and quality while removing blockers early and contributing directly to code when needed."}

### experience

- {"name":"10+ Years Software Engineering","description":"Minimum 10 years of professional software engineering experience across multiple technical domains, with a track record of solving increasingly complex problems and leading through technical depth."}
- {"name":"4+ Years Customer-Facing Technical Roles","description":"Minimum 4 years in customer-facing technical roles such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Professional Services Engineer, or as a software engineer with consulting or technical founder experience. Experience translating customer needs into technical solutions."}
- {"name":"Technical Leadership Across Engagements","description":"Demonstrated technical leadership across multiple customer engagements, teams, or domains with proven ability to set delivery standards, define repeatable patterns, influence product direction through field evidence, and mentor other engineers."}
- {"name":"Operating Autonomous, Distributed Teams","description":"High agency and comfort operating autonomously in distributed, remote-first team environments. Ability to manage own work, communicate progress proactively, and collaborate effectively across time zones and organizational boundaries."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Go Programming","description":"Production-grade expertise in Go for building efficient, concurrent systems and tools. Experience writing performant container infrastructure, deployment tools, or distributed systems."}
- {"name":"Python Programming","description":"Expert-level Python proficiency for scripting, automation, and rapid prototyping. Experience with AI/ML frameworks, API clients, and integration scripts."}
- {"name":"TypeScript/JavaScript","description":"Strong TypeScript and JavaScript capabilities for full-stack development, agent implementations, and Node.js-based tooling relevant to modern AI and deployment patterns."}
- {"name":"Docker Ecosystem","description":"Expert knowledge of Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, Docker Compose, Docker CLI, container image operations, registry management, networking, and storage. Proficiency with Docker-specific security features and optimization techniques."}
- {"name":"Large Language Models (LLMs)","description":"Hands-on experience building production applications with LLMs. Understanding of model APIs, prompt engineering, context management, token optimization, and integration patterns with external systems and tools."}
- {"name":"Model Context Protocol (MCP)","description":"Experience implementing MCP servers and clients for connecting agents to external tools and data sources. Understanding of MCP specifications, best practices for tool definition, and integration with coding agents."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Operational knowledge of Kubernetes fundamentals including deployments, services, networking, storage, security policies, and integration with container registries and CI/CD systems in enterprise environments."}
- {"name":"Enterprise Identity and Access Management","description":"Experience with OIDC, SAML, OAuth2, and SSO implementations. Familiarity with Okta, Azure Entra ID, and LDAP/Active Directory integration patterns in modern applications."}
- {"name":"Cloud Platform Services","description":"Hands-on experience with AWS (EC2, ECS, Lambda, IAM), Azure (App Services, Container Instances, Kubernetes), or GCP (Compute Engine, Cloud Run, GKE) for deployment and infrastructure."}
- {"name":"Software Supply Chain Security","description":"Knowledge of SBOMs, container image signing and attestation, vulnerability scanning, dependency management, and secure CI/CD practices. Experience with tools like Cosign, Syft, or similar."}
- {"name":"Agentic AI Architectures","description":"Understanding of autonomous agent patterns including tool use, function calling, planning, execution, and evaluation. Experience with coding agents like Claude Code, Gemini CLI, or Cursor in team settings."}
- {"name":"Communication and Mentorship","description":"Excellent written and verbal communication skills with engineers, security/platform teams, and executives. Low-ego, collaborative approach with proven track record of technical mentorship and raising team standards."}
- {"name":"Technical Sales and Field Engineering","description":"Ability to translate customer business problems into technical solutions. Experience with proof of concepts, customer presentations, technical escalations, and working with sales teams to drive adoption."}
- {"name":"Production Operations and Incident Response","description":"Experience operating production systems, debugging complex issues, managing on-call rotations, and developing incident response processes. Strong focus on observability, monitoring, and continuous improvement."}

### preferred

- {"name":"Docker Scout","description":"Experience with Docker Scout for container image analysis, vulnerability assessment, and supply chain risk evaluation. Knowledge of image indexing and software composition analysis."}
- {"name":"Docker Hardened Images","description":"Familiarity with Docker Hardened Images offering, including base image selection, minimal image construction, and security hardening best practices for regulated environments."}
- {"name":"MCP Gateway and Toolkit","description":"Experience with MCP Gateway for central agent control and MCP Toolkit for standardized tool integration patterns across customer organizations."}
- {"name":"Docker Sandboxes","description":"Hands-on experience with Docker Sandboxes for secure, isolated code execution environments critical for agentic AI workloads and untrusted code execution."}
- {"name":"Coding Agents in Enterprise","description":"Production experience deploying and operating coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor) in team or enterprise settings with governance and security controls."}
- {"name":"Regulated Environment Experience","description":"Background working in air-gapped, compliance-driven, or heavily regulated environments such as financial services, healthcare, government, or government contractors. Understanding of FedRAMP, HIPAA, SOC2, or similar compliance frameworks."}
- {"name":"Open Source Contributions","description":"Active contributions to open source projects in the container, Kubernetes, MCP ecosystems, or related cloud-native technologies. Demonstrated understanding of community-driven development and open standards."}
- {"name":"Forward Deployed Engineering Practice","description":"Prior experience founding, scaling, or leading a Forward Deployed Engineering or Professional Services practice. Understanding of engagement models, resource allocation, quality metrics, and team development in FDE contexts."}
- {"name":"Model Evaluation and Testing","description":"Experience with agent and model evaluation frameworks, prompt testing, benchmarking autonomous systems, and establishing quality thresholds for AI-powered applications in production."}

## Tech stack

### tools

### others

### databases

### languages

### frameworks

## Benefits

### benefits

## Compensation

- **max:** 0
- **min:** 0
- **currency:** 
- **stockOptions:** false

## Interview process

### steps

## Full 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.

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Docker Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE) embed directly with our most strategic customers to solve important, complex technical problems and turn ambitious ideas into production outcomes. FDEs take on the most challenging technical challenges using existing Docker products and patterns when possible, and work across customer, Docker Product and Engineering teams to realize new approaches when required.

As a Docker FDE, you will work side-by-side with customer engineering teams to deeply understand their goals, problems, constraints, and technical landscape; identify the highest-leverage opportunities; and design, build, and ship solutions with them. You own the technical journey from discovery and architecture through prototyping, implementation and production rollout.

The solutions you build may use existing Docker products, extend Docker into new environments, integrate deeply with customer and third-party systems, or reveal capabilities that Docker should build next. You work closely with Docker Solutions Architects to evolve existing patterns, and Docker Product and Engineering to turn new learnings into reusable patterns and product capabilities.

# **Responsibilities**

**Build in Production with Customers**

* Embed with customer engineering teams to design, build, and ship solutions from first prototype through stable production rollout. Use existing Docker products and patterns when possible, invent, prototype and validate innovative solutions when necessary.
* Deliver working technical artifacts to customers: custom MCP servers with tightly integrated Docker Sandbox environments for coding agents and containerized agents; Docker Compose definitions for multi-agent harnesses and model-backed applications; Hardened Image standardization and migration; New tools that unblock customer progress.
* Integrate Docker's AI platform with the customer's existing stack, including identity providers (OIDC/SAML/SSO), secrets management, private and air-gapped registries, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tooling.
* Own technical delivery on your engagements: scope the work, sequence it, make trade-offs between speed and quality, remove blockers early, and contribute directly to code whenever progress depends on it.

**Make AI Adoption Safe and Governable**

* Translate customer security, compliance, and platform requirements into concrete plans and see those plans through from ideation to production.
* Help customers define controls to enable them to adopt agentic AI to solve their unique business problems without compromising security, compliance, data sovereignty or end-user experience.
* Establish quality and performance standards for customers and work closely with Docker Product and Engineering to quickly address issues that fall outside of established thresholds
* Partner with customer security and platform teams to get agentic workloads through architecture review, threat modeling, and change control.

**Partner with Solutions Architecture and the Field**

* Work closely with Solutions Architects to enable off-the-self solutions when possible and provide technical experience and leadership when a bespoke solution is necessary.
* Feed implementation learnings back into reference architectures, SOW templates, and success patterns so that FDE innovations become standard features and implementation patterns.
* Support the field with technical depth during proofs of concept, escalations, and expansion conversations when a working build is the fastest path to a customer adoption.

**Close the Loop with Product and Engineering**

* As part of Docker Engineering FDEs work closely with Product and Engineering teams to fold FDE innovations, learnings, and design patterns into existing or new products and services.
* Work with Customers, Product and Engineering to establish quality and performance thresholds, ensuring customer environments meet them consistently, and responding quickly and decisively when they don’t.
* Be the voice of the customer. Deliver data-driven and actionable feedback to Product and Engineering: what works well; what does not; what customers are asking for; and what blocks their adoption and forward progress. FDE experience directly influences the roadmap.

**Shape the Practice**

* Define the FDE engagement model, delivery standards, and quality bar, and codify them so that engagements are consistent across customers, regions, and delivery partners.
* Mentor and lead other Forward Deployed Engineers, and participate in hiring loops to grow the team.
* Act as the senior technical escalation point on the hardest problems impacting your customers. Every incident is an opportunity to improve Docker products and services.
* Maintain deep, current knowledge of the agentic AI stack: LLMs, APIs, MCP, coding agents, model and harness evaluation approaches, performance and quality thresholds, deployment patterns.
* This role may require participation in an on-call rotation to provide support outside of standard business hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays, as needed.

## **Qualifications**

**Required**

* 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 4+ years in a customer-facing technical role such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Professional Services Engineer, or Software Engineer with consulting or technical founder experience.
* Technical leadership across multiple engagements, teams, or domains, with a proven ability to set delivery standards, define repeatable patterns, and influence product direction through field evidence.
* Expert production coding skills in Go, Python, or TypeScript, with a track record of shipping and operating software that other people depend on and of leading technical design reviews.
* Deep, hands-on Docker expertise: Dockerfiles and multi-stage builds, Docker Compose, image and registry operations, container networking and storage, and container security fundamentals.
* Hands-on experience building with LLMs and agents in production, including tool use and function calling, the Model Context Protocol (MCP server and client implementation), prompt and context engineering, and evaluation of agent behavior.
* Working knowledge of software supply chain security: SBOMs, image signing and attestation, vulnerability management, minimal and hardened base images, and secure CI/CD.
* Experience integrating with enterprise systems: identity providers (Okta, Entra ID, LDAP/Active Directory), federated identity protocols (OIDC, SAML), secrets managers, Kubernetes, and at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, GCP).
* Ability to scope and deliver complex work in ambiguous, fast-moving customer environments, making sound trade-offs between scope, speed, and quality.
* Excellent communication skills with engineers, security and platform teams, and executive stakeholders, with a low-ego, collaborative approach and the ability to lead through influence rather than authority.
* Proven track record of technical mentorship and of raising the bar for the engineers around you.
* High agency and comfort operating autonomously in distributed, remote-first teams.
* Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
* Travel to customer sites to build in person with customer teams, estimated at up to 50%.

**Bonus** 

* Experience with Docker Hardened Images, Docker Scout, MCP Gateway, MCP Toolkit, Docker Sandboxes, or Docker Model Runner.
* Experience deploying and operating coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or similar) in team or enterprise settings.
* Experience with air-gapped, regulated, or compliance-driven environments in financial services, healthcare, government, or similar sectors.
* Contributions to open source projects in the container, Kubernetes, or MCP ecosystems.
* Prior experience founding or scaling a Forward Deployed Engineering or Professional Services practice.

**Compensation & Equity**

**United States:** €121K – €198K + equity

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## **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.

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## **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._

#LI-REMOTE