# Staff Software Engineer, Networking (Seattle or SF Bay Area)
**Company:** [Docker](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/docker)
Docker seeks a Staff Software Engineer to lead the networking infrastructure powering the Sandboxes platform, supporting AI and security initiatives. This role demands expertise in large-scale distributed systems, kernel-level networking technologies, and container orchestration, requiring 8+ years of infrastructure experience. The position provides technical leadership to a small engineering team while architecting high-performance, scalable networking solutions across local and cloud environments.
**Role:** Staff Engineer
**Seniority:** Staff
**Locations:** San Francisco Bay Area
**Remote:** yes
**Salary:** 170350–275550 USD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/docker/57ccbca7-6818-4e34-8f31-bf762e1f4e00)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/docker/staff-software-engineer-networking-seattle-or-sf-bay-area
---
## Responsibilities

- Architect Core Networking Services: Design and implement foundational networking services that power Docker's Sandboxes platform across diverse environments including local laptops and public cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI). Establish simple, reusable primitives that work seamlessly in both local and cloud deployments to reduce architectural complexity.
- Build Scalable MicroVM Infrastructure: Develop highly scalable networking infrastructure supporting microVM orchestration, workload scheduling, and lifecycle management. Design systems capable of handling multi-tenant deployments with efficient resource allocation and predictable performance characteristics.
- Develop High-Performance Networking Components: Engineer optimized data-plane and control-plane networking components specifically designed for multi-tenant agentic workloads. Focus on achieving sub-millisecond latency, high throughput, and minimal resource overhead in distributed environments.
- Ensure System Reliability and Observability: Establish comprehensive monitoring, logging, and observability practices for network infrastructure. Design for high availability with redundancy patterns, implement robust alerting systems, and conduct performance analysis across Docker's Sandbox infrastructure.
- Provide Technical Leadership: Lead a small team of engineers by setting technical direction, conducting design reviews, establishing coding standards, and mentoring team members. Drive consensus across stakeholders, communicate architectural decisions clearly, and foster a culture of operational excellence.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with product, platform, and security teams to translate requirements into robust networking capabilities. Participate in architectural discussions, design review processes, and ensure networking decisions align with broader Docker platform goals.
- Production Operations and Incident Response: Participate in on-call rotation, respond to production incidents, debug issues across distributed systems in both local and cloud environments. Implement improvements to prevent incident recurrence and establish post-incident review processes.
- DevOps and Infrastructure Excellence: Contribute to CI/CD pipeline enhancements, infrastructure-as-code improvements, and deployment automation. Establish best practices for infrastructure testing, validation, and progressive rollout strategies across the platform.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field","description":"Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical field. Equivalent practical experience demonstrating mastery of core computer science fundamentals is acceptable."}

### technical

- {"name":"Large-Scale Distributed Systems","description":"8+ years designing, building, and operating distributed systems at scale with focus on networking architecture and infrastructure foundations. Proven ability to architect systems handling millions of concurrent connections and petabytes of data."}
- {"name":"Kernel and User-Space Networking","description":"Deep expertise in Linux networking stack, including advanced kernel networking, Open vSwitch (OVS), Open Virtual Network (OVN), DPDK for high-performance packet processing, and eBPF for programmable network behavior. Experience optimizing network performance at kernel level."}
- {"name":"Container Orchestration and Networking","description":"Extensive experience with container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes, Docker Swarm), container networking models, network policies, and service discovery mechanisms. Understanding of container runtime networking constraints and optimization techniques."}
- {"name":"Service Mesh and Policy Enforcement","description":"Hands-on experience implementing or operating service mesh architectures (Istio, Linkerd, or similar). Knowledge of network policy enforcement, traffic management, circuit breaking, and observability within service mesh frameworks."}
- {"name":"Cloud Infrastructure and Scalability","description":"Strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI) including VPC design, security groups, load balancing, and scalability patterns. Experience architecting solutions that work across multiple cloud providers or hybrid environments."}
- {"name":"Infrastructure-as-Code and Automation","description":"Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible) and CI/CD pipeline construction. Experience implementing automated deployment, testing, and rollback strategies for infrastructure changes."}
- {"name":"Distributed Systems Debugging","description":"Expert-level debugging and troubleshooting skills in distributed environments. Proficiency with packet analysis tools, system tracing, performance profiling, and root cause analysis of complex issues spanning multiple layers."}

### experience

- {"name":"Senior Infrastructure Engineering Leadership","description":"8+ years of combined experience building large-scale cloud or distributed systems with proven track record of technical leadership. Demonstrated success leading small teams through complex architectural decisions and delivering high-quality infrastructure software on tight timelines."}
- {"name":"Technical Consensus Building","description":"Proven ability to drive technical consensus among engineering teams and stakeholders on architecture, design decisions, and technology choices. Experience navigating ambiguity, proposing pragmatic solutions, and rallying teams around technical direction."}
- {"name":"High-Availability Systems Operation","description":"Experience designing, deploying, and operating highly available networking infrastructure serving millions of users or handling massive scale. Track record of achieving strong SLOs and reducing mean time to recovery (MTTR) for critical systems."}
- {"name":"Cross-Platform Development","description":"Experience developing infrastructure solutions that work across multiple platforms, environments, or cloud providers. Understanding of platform-specific constraints and techniques for building abstraction layers that hide platform differences."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Systems Architecture","description":"Ability to design systems from first principles, evaluate tradeoffs between reliability, performance, scalability, and complexity. Experience with distributed consensus, eventual consistency, and failure domain isolation."}
- {"name":"Network Protocol Implementation","description":"Deep understanding of TCP/IP stack, DNS, HTTP/gRPC protocols, and ability to implement or extend networking protocols. Knowledge of performance implications of protocol choices and optimization techniques."}
- {"name":"Performance Optimization","description":"Expertise in identifying performance bottlenecks through profiling and measurement, implementing optimizations at multiple levels (algorithm, architecture, kernel, hardware). Experience with latency and throughput tradeoff analysis."}
- {"name":"Team Leadership and Mentoring","description":"Proven ability to guide engineering teams technically, conduct effective code reviews, establish development standards, and mentor engineers toward technical growth. Experience growing teams from individual contributors to independent problem-solvers."}
- {"name":"Problem Solving and Critical Thinking","description":"Strong analytical skills combined with practical engineering judgment. Ability to break complex problems into manageable components, evaluate multiple approaches, and select solutions balancing technical elegance with pragmatic delivery."}
- {"name":"Communication and Documentation","description":"Clear written and verbal communication skills for explaining complex technical concepts to diverse audiences. Proficiency creating architecture documents, design specifications, and runbooks that guide team decision-making."}

### preferred

- {"name":"Golang Programming","description":"Experience building high-performance systems in Go language. Familiarity with goroutines, channels, and Go's standard library for systems programming."}
- {"name":"Rust Systems Programming","description":"Experience implementing systems-level code in Rust, particularly for networking or performance-critical components. Understanding of Rust's ownership model and how it ensures memory safety in infrastructure code."}
- {"name":"Container and Virtualization Technologies","description":"Hands-on experience with microVM technologies, hypervisors, or container runtimes. Understanding of containerization tradeoffs and isolation mechanisms at kernel level."}
- {"name":"AI/ML Infrastructure","description":"Experience supporting AI workloads or ML inference platforms. Understanding of unique networking requirements for distributed AI training or real-time inference serving."}
- {"name":"Open Source Contributions","description":"Active contributions to open source networking projects, container runtimes, or infrastructure software. Demonstrated ability to collaborate in open source communities and navigate complex existing codebases."}
- {"name":"Security and Network Isolation","description":"Expertise in network security, encryption, access control, and tenant isolation. Experience implementing zero-trust networking models or fine-grained security policies."}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Terraform","description":"Infrastructure-as-Code tool for defining and managing cloud resources across multiple cloud providers in automated, repeatable manner."}
- {"name":"Docker and Container Runtimes","description":"Deep understanding of Docker and container runtime specifications for building compatible networking solutions."}
- {"name":"Linux Kernel Tracing","description":"Proficiency with eBPF, BCC tools, and kernel tracing for low-level performance analysis and observability of networking behavior."}
- {"name":"Prometheus and Grafana","description":"Metrics collection, aggregation, and visualization tools for monitoring distributed networking infrastructure and identifying performance anomalies."}
- {"name":"tcpdump and Wireshark","description":"Network packet capture and analysis tools for debugging protocol issues and analyzing network behavior at packet level."}

### others

- {"name":"eBPF (Extended Berkeley Packet Filter)","description":"In-kernel virtual machine for implementing programmable network behavior, custom packet processing, and observability without modifying kernel code."}
- {"name":"DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit)","description":"User-space networking toolkit for high-performance packet processing, enabling line-rate throughput with microsecond latencies."}
- {"name":"Linux Networking Stack","description":"Deep understanding of TCP/IP stack internals, netfilter subsystem, routing, and network namespace isolation mechanisms."}

### databases

- {"name":"etcd","description":"Distributed key-value store used for cluster state management, service discovery, and configuration synchronization across Docker's Sandbox infrastructure."}

### languages

- {"name":"Go","description":"Primary language for Docker infrastructure components and networking services. Used for building control-plane logic and high-performance network daemons."}
- {"name":"C","description":"Required for kernel networking components, eBPF programs, and performance-critical data-plane implementations interacting with Linux kernel."}
- {"name":"Python","description":"Used for infrastructure automation, CI/CD scripting, tooling, and operational scripts across Docker's platform infrastructure."}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Primary orchestration platform for managing containerized services and workloads across Docker's infrastructure at scale."}
- {"name":"Open vSwitch (OVS)","description":"Virtual switching platform for implementing complex networking topologies and network policies in containerized environments."}
- {"name":"Open Virtual Network (OVN)","description":"Network virtualization platform built on OVS providing logical network abstraction and advanced networking capabilities for multi-tenant environments."}
- {"name":"gRPC","description":"High-performance RPC framework used for control-plane communication between networking components and services across distributed infrastructure."}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Flexible Work Arrangement","description":"Remote-first work culture with offices in Seattle and San Francisco Bay Area. Design your work schedule to fit your lifestyle and maximize productivity."}
- {"name":"Quarterly Whaleness Days","description":"Designated quarterly breaks plus end-of-year extended break to recharge, reflect, and return energized. Docker recognizes the importance of sustainable work practices."}
- {"name":"Comprehensive Home Office Setup","description":"Home office setup allowance and equipment support to ensure you maintain an ergonomic, productive workspace. Technology stipend of $100 USD net/month for ongoing upgrades."}
- {"name":"Generous Parental Leave","description":"16 weeks of paid parental leave available after 6 months of employment, supporting work-life balance during major life transitions."}
- {"name":"Professional Development","description":"Annual training stipend for conferences, courses, certifications, and classes. Investment in your continuous learning and career growth in rapidly evolving infrastructure landscape."}
- {"name":"Flexible Time Off","description":"Unlimited PTO policy encouraging you to take the time you need for personal wellness, travel, and rejuvenation outside of mandatory holidays."}
- {"name":"Equity and Ownership","description":"Equity participation in Docker's growth as a rapidly expanding company. Align your interests with company success and benefit from long-term value creation."}
- {"name":"Comprehensive Health and Retirement","description":"Medical benefits, dental, vision, and retirement plans tailored by country of employment. Full support for your health and financial security."}
- {"name":"Community and Swag","description":"Docker branded merchandise and access to vibrant global community of developers and engineers building modern infrastructure."}

## Compensation

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

## Interview process

### steps

## Full description
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.

As a **Staff Software Engineer** in Networking, you will set the technical direction for the networking stack behind Docker's Sandboxes platform and make architectural decisions that ripple across Docker's product portfolio. Your work will directly enable Docker's expansion into AI and security products.

This role calls for someone who:

1. Combines deep technical expertise in infrastructure at scale, virtual networking, service mesh, orchestration, and integration across the broader infrastructure stack;
2. Communicates and collaborates well, thinks critically, and turns ideas into working systems
3. Adapts to ambiguity and brings clarity
4. Provides technical leadership to a small team of engineers, driving customer delight through the solutions they deliver

# **Responsibilities**

* Design, implement, and operate core networking services that power Docker's Sandboxes platform across local laptops and public cloud environments
* Build scalable networking infrastructure for microVM orchestration, workload scheduling, and lifecycle management
* Develop high-performance networking data- and control-plane components for multi-tenant agentic workloads
* Ensure network reliability, observability, and performance across Docker's Sandbox infrastructure
* Collaborate with product, platform, and security teams to deliver customer-focused capabilities
* Participate in architectural discussions, code reviews, and design documents
* Contribute to automation and CI/CD improvements across the deployment pipeline
* Debug and resolve production issues across distributed systems in local and public-cloud environments
* Take part in on-call rotation for your team; respond to incidents and drive continuous improvement of system reliability and availability

# **Qualifications**

* 8+ years of experience building and leading large-scale cloud or distributed systems, with a focus on networking foundations
* Track record of driving technical consensus and delivering high-quality infrastructure software at scale, on tight timelines
* Experience with microservices architecture, container networking, service mesh, policy enforcement, and container orchestration
* Experience with kernel and user-space networking technologies, including Linux networking, OVS/OVN, DPDK, and eBPF
* Experience designing and operating highly available, secure, and observable networking infrastructure
* Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI) and related scalability patterns
* Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and infrastructure-as-code tooling
* Excellent problem-solving and debugging skills in distributed environments
* Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across remote, cross-functional teams
* Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

# **What to Expect**

## **First 30 days**

* Onboard, integrate with our Sandbox infrastructure teams, and build context on Docker's Sandbox vision
* Deep-dive into Sandbox architecture for local and public-cloud infrastructure, with a focus on driving simple, common foundational primitives usable across both environments
* Identify the highest-leverage opportunities in the current architecture, along with strategic and tactical execution risks

## **First 90 days**

* Develop a technical roadmap to address the challenges identified; drive consensus across stakeholders
* Provide technical leadership to a small team of engineers to deliver on the roadmap
* Establish or improve technical standards for development, deployment, operation, and observability of networking services

## **One-year outlook**

* Drive simplification of foundational networking infrastructure across local and public-cloud environments
* Establish repeatable engineering practices for quality, performance, and operational excellence
* Nurture the team's confidence and capability by providing clarity, sustaining focus, and delivering pragmatically through successive iteration
* Set a standard for what a small team of engineers can deliver and manage when given a charter, autonomy, and the tools they need

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

**Compensation & Equity**

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

**Perks**

* Freedom & flexibility; fit your work around your life
* Designated quarterly Whaleness Days plus end of year Whaleness break
* Home office setup; we want you comfortable while you work
* 16 weeks of paid Parental leave (after 6 months of employment)
* Technology stipend equivalent to $100 USD net/month
* PTO plan that encourages you to take time to do the things you enjoy
* Training stipend for conferences, courses and classes
* Equity; we are a growing start-up and want all employees to have a share in the success of the company
* Docker Swag
* Medical benefits, retirement and holidays vary by country
* Remote-first culture, with offices in Seattle and Paris

Docker embraces diversity and equal opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better our company will be.

#LI-REMOTE