# Staff Software Engineer, Billing
**Company:** [Docker](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/docker)
Docker seeks an experienced Staff Software Engineer for Billing to design and maintain critical infrastructure supporting the Billing Platform. This role focuses on AI-native infrastructure patterns, billing accuracy observability, and usage-based billing scalability within a globally distributed, remote-first team trusted by 20 million monthly users.
**Role:** Staff Infrastructure Engineer
**Seniority:** Staff
**Locations:** Seattle, WA
**Remote:** yes
**Salary:** 170350–275550 USD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/docker/6651fe75-ccdc-4837-8374-4aa8053b714d)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/docker/staff-software-engineer-billing-6651fe75
---
## Responsibilities

- Infrastructure Ownership and Evolution: Own and evolve the end-to-end infrastructure supporting the Billing Platform services, including compute resources, storage systems, networking architecture, CI/CD pipelines, and observability stacks. Establish best practices and maintain system reliability and performance across all infrastructure components.
- Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) Design and Standards: Design and maintain production Terraform configurations for billing system infrastructure on AWS. Establish reusable module patterns, set organizational standards for infrastructure code, and ensure scalability and maintainability across deployments. Lead by example with infrastructure-as-code best practices.
- Observability Systems Architecture: Build and own comprehensive observability systems including metrics collection, centralized logging, and intelligent alerting. Prioritize billing accuracy detection, payment reliability monitoring, and failure prevention. Ensure financial transaction integrity through robust observability that catches billing miscalculations and entitlement gaps immediately.
- AI-Agent-Assisted Deployment Patterns: Define and implement deployment patterns, runbooks, and safe promotion gates designed for AI-assisted development workflows. Establish clear rollback procedures, automated validation stages, and safe shipping practices that enable confident deployments while maintaining system integrity.
- Cross-Functional Infrastructure Partnerships: Collaborate with software engineers during the service design phase, bringing infrastructure constraints, operational requirements, and deployment implications into architectural conversations before code is written. Bridge the gap between infrastructure capabilities and application requirements.
- Systemic Risk Identification and Mitigation: Proactively identify systemic risks spanning team or organizational boundaries. Drive comprehensive improvements that address infrastructure vulnerabilities, security concerns, and operational gaps. Own risk mitigation from conception through execution.
- Incident Response Leadership: Lead incident response efforts for billing system issues with particular emphasis on financial accuracy and payment reliability. Participate in on-call rotation providing support outside standard business hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays as needed. Establish incident response procedures and post-mortems.
- Technical Mentorship and Organization Leadership: Mentor engineers across the billing team and broader organization. Raise the technical floor through knowledge sharing, code review guidance, and architectural mentoring. Scale your influence through technical judgment and leadership that elevates team capabilities and establishes engineering standards.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or Related Field","description":"Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical engineering experience demonstrating strong foundational knowledge of computer systems and software architecture."}
- {"name":"Advanced Technical Communication","description":"Strong written English communication skills with demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly. At the Staff level, written communication is the primary mechanism for scaling influence across multiple teams and stakeholders."}

### technical

- {"name":"Advanced AWS Infrastructure Expertise","description":"Deep expertise across AWS compute services (ECS and EKS), relational databases with PostgreSQL specialization, networking architecture, IAM security models, and cost optimization. Proven experience operating these services under production load and managing real incident scenarios."}
- {"name":"Expert-Level Terraform Proficiency","description":"Production expertise designing and implementing reusable Terraform modules, establishing infrastructure code standards, and managing complex infrastructure-as-code patterns. Experience mentoring others on Terraform best practices and architectural patterns."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes Operations and Architecture","description":"Operational and architectural knowledge of Kubernetes, including cluster management, resource optimization, workload orchestration, and production hardening. Experience managing Kubernetes at organizational scale within SaaS environments."}
- {"name":"Observability Stack Architecture and Implementation","description":"Production experience building and owning observability infrastructure using tools like Datadog, Grafana, or equivalent platforms. Expertise in designing metrics strategies, log aggregation systems, and alerting frameworks at organizational scale, not just operational usage."}
- {"name":"CI/CD Pipeline Design and Optimization","description":"Strong expertise with CI/CD systems including Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or equivalent platforms. Experience designing deployment pipelines, optimizing developer experience, and establishing automation standards that improve velocity and reliability."}
- {"name":"Security-First Infrastructure Design","description":"Security-focused mindset with expertise in threat modeling, blast radius analysis, least-privilege access implementation, and audit trail design. Ability to integrate security requirements into infrastructure architecture from the design phase."}
- {"name":"AI-Native Infrastructure Patterns","description":"Experience or strong technical understanding of infrastructure requirements for AI-agent-assisted development workflows, including safe deployment automation, strong observability for generated code, clean rollback mechanisms, and validated deployment gates."}

### experience

- {"name":"Platform and Infrastructure Engineering Leadership","description":"8+ years in platform, infrastructure, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) roles supporting production SaaS systems at scale. Demonstrated ability to own infrastructure components end-to-end and drive organizational improvements."}
- {"name":"Production System Operations","description":"Extensive hands-on experience operating complex distributed systems under real production load, including incident management, performance optimization, and reliability improvements in high-stakes environments."}
- {"name":"Cross-Team Technical Leadership","description":"Track record of identifying systemic risks and driving improvements that span team or organizational boundaries. Demonstrated ability to build consensus, move complex work forward without direct authority, and raise the technical standards of engineering organizations."}
- {"name":"Billing, Payments, or Financial Systems Experience","description":"Meaningful experience with billing platforms, payment processing infrastructure, or financial systems, including understanding of accuracy requirements, compliance considerations, and audit trail necessities. This is considered a significant advantage."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"AWS Platform Services","description":"ECS, EKS, RDS (PostgreSQL), VPC networking, IAM, ElasticCache, S3, and cost management tools. Operating experience at production scale under real incidents."}
- {"name":"Terraform and IaC","description":"Expert proficiency designing reusable modules, establishing infrastructure standards, and managing complex infrastructure-as-code deployments."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Operational and architectural expertise with cluster management, resource optimization, and production workload orchestration."}
- {"name":"Observability Engineering","description":"Building metrics strategies, log aggregation systems, and alerting frameworks using platforms like Datadog or Grafana at organizational scale."}
- {"name":"CI/CD Pipeline Engineering","description":"Designing deployment automation using Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or equivalent platforms with focus on developer experience and reliability."}
- {"name":"Security and Compliance","description":"Threat modeling, least-privilege access design, audit trail implementation, and blast radius analysis for production systems."}
- {"name":"Infrastructure Problem Solving","description":"Systematic approach to identifying infrastructure bottlenecks, scalability issues, and reliability gaps. Ability to design solutions spanning organizational boundaries."}
- {"name":"Technical Leadership and Communication","description":"Ability to mentor engineers, establish technical standards, and communicate complex concepts clearly in written form to influence multiple teams."}

### preferred

- {"name":"Billing and Payments Infrastructure","description":"Experience designing or operating billing platforms, payment processing systems, or financial transaction infrastructure with emphasis on accuracy, auditability, and compliance."}
- {"name":"AI-Assisted Development Workflows","description":"Experience with or strong understanding of infrastructure patterns supporting AI-agent-assisted code generation, deployment, and operations. Knowledge of safe automation practices in agent-driven environments."}
- {"name":"Usage-Based Billing and Metering","description":"Experience with usage-based billing models, consumption tracking, and auto-scaling infrastructure that adapts to dynamic usage patterns without manual intervention."}
- {"name":"Incident Management and SRE Practices","description":"Established expertise in incident response procedures, post-incident reviews, on-call automation, and reliability engineering practices at organizational scale."}
- {"name":"Multi-Region Infrastructure","description":"Experience designing and operating infrastructure across multiple AWS regions or cloud providers with considerations for data residency, disaster recovery, and global availability."}
- {"name":"Financial Systems Compliance","description":"Understanding of PCI DSS, SOC 2, or other financial compliance frameworks and their implications for infrastructure design and operations."}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Datadog","description":"Comprehensive observability platform for metrics, logging, and alerting across infrastructure and applications."}
- {"name":"Grafana","description":"Open-source visualization and dashboarding tool for metrics-based monitoring and operational insights."}
- {"name":"GitHub Actions","description":"CI/CD platform integrated with GitHub for automated testing, building, and deployment workflows."}
- {"name":"Jenkins","description":"Enterprise CI/CD orchestration platform for complex pipeline design and automation."}
- {"name":"Docker","description":"Container runtime and platform used throughout the organization for application packaging and deployment."}
- {"name":"AWS CloudFormation and CLI","description":"AWS infrastructure automation and command-line tools for infrastructure management and deployment."}
- {"name":"Prometheus","description":"Time-series metrics collection and alerting system commonly used in Kubernetes and SRE environments."}
- {"name":"ELK Stack / Loki","description":"Log aggregation and analysis tools for centralized logging across distributed infrastructure."}

### others

- {"name":"AWS ECS","description":"Container orchestration service for managing containerized applications and microservices deployments."}
- {"name":"AWS EKS","description":"Managed Kubernetes service providing enterprise-grade container orchestration on AWS infrastructure."}
- {"name":"AWS VPC and Networking","description":"Virtual private cloud design, network segmentation, security groups, and routing for secure infrastructure."}
- {"name":"AWS IAM","description":"Identity and access management for least-privilege authentication, authorization, and audit trail implementation."}
- {"name":"Infrastructure Observability","description":"Designing comprehensive monitoring covering application performance, system health, and business metrics for billing accuracy."}
- {"name":"Incident Management","description":"On-call procedures, incident response automation, and post-incident review processes for operational reliability."}

### databases

- {"name":"PostgreSQL","description":"Preferred relational database for billing platform services, transactions, and financial data integrity. Must have operational expertise."}
- {"name":"RDS","description":"AWS managed relational database service providing PostgreSQL hosting, backup, and operational management."}
- {"name":"Redis/ElastiCache","description":"In-memory caching layer for performance optimization and rate limiting in high-throughput billing scenarios."}

### languages

- {"name":"Python","description":"Infrastructure automation, scripting, and tooling commonly used in platform engineering and SRE roles."}
- {"name":"Go","description":"Modern systems programming for infrastructure tools, observability components, and DevOps utilities."}
- {"name":"Bash/Shell","description":"Essential for system administration, deployment scripting, and operational tasks in infrastructure roles."}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Terraform","description":"Infrastructure-as-code framework for provisioning and managing AWS resources with reusable modules and state management."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Container orchestration platform for managing containerized workloads, service deployment, and infrastructure operations."}
- {"name":"CloudFormation","description":"AWS-native infrastructure-as-code service for resource definition and stack management (alternative to Terraform)."}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Remote-First Work Environment","description":"Fully distributed, remote-first organization with optional office access in Seattle and Paris for collaboration and connection with team members."}
- {"name":"Flexible Schedule Management","description":"Trusted schedule flexibility allowing you to manage your work around your life while maintaining delivery commitments and high performance."}
- {"name":"Generous Paid Time Off","description":"Comprehensive PTO policy, designated quarterly 'Whaleness Days' for recharge and wellness, and designated end-of-year break for extended time off."}
- {"name":"Home Office Support","description":"Dedicated support to set up and maintain a comfortable, productive home office workspace with necessary equipment and ergonomic considerations."}
- {"name":"Technology Stipend","description":"Monthly technology stipend equivalent to USD $100 net per month to support hardware, software, and tools needed for your role."}
- {"name":"Learning and Professional Development","description":"Annual stipend for conferences, technical certifications, online courses, and continued learning opportunities to advance your skills and stay current with industry trends."}
- {"name":"Parental Leave","description":"16 weeks of paid parental leave after six months of employment to support work-life balance during significant life events."}
- {"name":"Equity Participation","description":"Full-time employees receive equity stakes in Docker, enabling you to share in the company's long-term success and growth as a publicly-backed company."}
- {"name":"Comprehensive Health and Retirement Benefits","description":"Medical, dental, and vision coverage, retirement plan contributions, and paid holidays. Benefits vary by country to align with local standards and regulations."}
- {"name":"Docker Branded Merchandise","description":"Regular Docker swag and branded merchandise celebrating the company culture and community."}

## Compensation

- **max:** 275550
- **min:** 170350
- **currency:** USD
- **stockOptions:** true

## 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.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

We're building AI-native development practices into how this team works at a foundational level. That means infrastructure design needs to account for a new kind of collaborator: AI agents that generate, deploy, and operate software. The Staff Infrastructure Engineer on this team will keep systems running, define what safe, observable, AI-assisted infrastructure operations look like in practice, and set the standard for how the broader engineering organization follows.

# **What you'll work on**

The Billing Platform Engineering team owns the systems that make Docker's commercial model real. You'll work on problems like:

* How do we design infrastructure that makes AI-generated deployments safe to ship and easy to roll back?
* How do we instrument billing systems so that failures — billing miscalculations, entitlement gaps, payment errors — are detected immediately and unambiguously?
* How do we build infrastructure that scales with usage-based billing workloads without manual intervention?
* How do we make the developer experience on this team faster and more reliable — local environments, CI/CD pipelines, deployment tooling?

# **Responsibilities**

* Own and evolve the infrastructure supporting Billing Platform services: compute, storage, networking, CI/CD, and observability
* Design and maintain IaC (Terraform) for billing system infrastructure on AWS; set module patterns and standards for the team
* Build and own observability systems — metrics, logging, alerting — with a focus on billing accuracy and payment reliability
* Define deployment patterns and runbooks that work well in an AI-agent-assisted development workflow: clear rollback procedures, safe promotion gates, automated validation
* Partner with software engineers on service design — bringing infrastructure constraints and operational requirements into the conversation before code is written
* Identify systemic risks and drive improvements that span team or organizational boundaries
* Lead incident response for billing system issues. 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.
* Mentor engineers across the team; your technical judgment should raise the floor for everyone

# **Qualifications**

* 8+ years in platform, infrastructure, or SRE roles supporting production SaaS systems at scale
* Deep AWS expertise: ECS or EKS, RDS (Postgres preferred), networking, IAM, cost management — you've operated these systems under real load and real incidents
* Expert-level Terraform; you've designed reusable module patterns and set standards others follow
* Experience building and owning observability stacks (Datadog, Grafana, or similar) at an organizational level — not just using them
* Strong familiarity with CI/CD systems — Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or equivalent — including pipeline design and developer experience ownership
* Kubernetes at an operational and architectural level
* A track record of identifying systemic risks and driving improvements that span team or organizational boundaries
* Security-first mindset: threat modeling, blast radius analysis, least-privilege by default, audit trails as a design requirement
* Strong written English; at Staff level, written communication is how you scale your influence across teams
* Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

# **What sets you apart**

You don't wait for problems to be handed to you — you find them, frame them, and drive the solution. You've operated at a scope where your decisions affected multiple teams or systems, and you know how to build consensus and move work forward without direct authority. You've thought seriously about what infrastructure needs to look like when AI agents are generating and shipping code — safe deployment patterns, strong observability, clean rollback — and you want to help define that standard here. Experience with billing, payments, or financial systems infrastructure is a meaningful plus.

# **What to Expect** 
**First 30 Days**

You will ship code in your first week. We run an agent-first development workflow — infrastructure changes start with a plan, specifications are written before generation, and every change is reviewed before it merges — and onboarding is no exception. You will get hands-on with the infrastructure supporting Billing Platform services early, shadow on-call, and build a clear picture of the system before you start making bigger changes. By the end of 30 days you will have shipped real work and know where the most important problems are.

## **First 90 Days**

You will have taken ownership of one or more infrastructure components and delivered an improvement from design to production with measurable impact. You will be an active participant in deployment and reliability discussions, bringing infrastructure constraints and operational requirements into the conversation early — before code is written. You will be a full participant in the on-call rotation and have begun shaping the team's technical direction.

## **One Year Outlook**

You will be the team's trusted authority on billing infrastructure. You will have driven meaningful improvements to observability, deployment safety, or platform reliability — and your work will be directly visible in the resilience and correctness of systems that handle real financial transactions for millions of Docker users. You will have helped define what AI-agent-assisted infrastructure operations look like done right, and that standard will be visible beyond this team.

**Docker considers sponsorship on a case-by-case basis based on business needs.**

**Compensation & Equity**

**United States:** $170,350 – $275,550 + 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._

#LI-REMOTE