Staff Software Engineer, Runtime
About The Position
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. The Runtime team is building Docker's runtime for AI workloads—a cross-platform foundation that delivers strong isolation and enterprise governance at every layer. The team owns a custom VMM, a full container stack, and deep OS integration across Windows, macOS, and Linux. This technology is the core of Docker's sbx product, which enables AI agents and workloads to run safely and at scale. In this role you will work on the filesystem and container runtime layers of our stack: from VirtioFS caching and OverlayFS semantics to OCI image handling and containerd integration. You will interact with users and customers who run into issues, contribute to our open source projects, and help drive the performance and correctness work that the team's products depend on. The successful candidate has deep experience with filesystems and container technology. They are comfortable working at the intersection of the kernel and userspace, understand the tradeoffs between different approaches to host/guest filesystem sharing, and have shipped production container infrastructure. They thrive in a remote-first environment, communicate clearly across time zones, and bring curiosity and craftsmanship to hard problems.
Requirements
- 7+ years of experience in systems programming with a focus on filesystems or container runtimes.
- 6+ years of professional, hands-on, full-time software engineering experience in backend, infrastructure, or platform engineering.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
- Deep understanding of filesystem semantics: POSIX, VFS, virtual filesystems (FUSE, VirtioFS), and overlay filesystems.
- Experience with container technologies: OCI image spec, containerd, runc, or equivalent low-level container infrastructure.
- Proficiency in Go and/or Rust; comfort reading and modifying C where necessary.
- Experience debugging complex, cross-platform issues with kernel and userspace components.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Comfortable working with a high degree of autonomy in a remote-first environment.
Responsibilities
- Design, develop, and maintain the filesystem and container runtime components of Docker's local runtime stack.
- Investigate and resolve correctness, performance, and stability issues in the filesystem layer across macOS, Windows, and Linux.
- Work on VirtioFS, OverlayFS, and related filesystem technologies to improve performance and reliability for AI agent workloads.
- Contribute to containerd integration and OCI-compliant container lifecycle management.
- Collaborate with peers on the team to evolve the architecture of the runtime as requirements grow.
- Engage with the open source community on filesystem and container runtime related projects.
- Participate in on-call rotations and respond to critical stability issues affecting users.
- Document your work clearly and share knowledge with the rest of the team.
Benefits
- 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
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
Associate degree
