Senior Software Engineer (Containers)

About the role

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake. Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

Senior Software Engineer, Guarded Containers

The role, in a nutshell:

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Guarded Containers team and help shape the future of Chainguard Images — our core product. This is a product-driven, feature-development role: you'll design and ship new capabilities that directly expand what our product can do for customers, work cross-functionally to turn ideas into shipped features. Alongside building new functionality, you'll help evolve the tooling and infrastructure that supports it, and help uphold the quality bar our customers expect. You'll guide technical decisions and help set the standard for excellence on the team.

What you’ll do:

Design and build new features and services that make Chainguard Images more powerful, compelling, and valuable to customers — this is a feature-first role, not a maintenance role.

Partner with cross-functional stakeholders (product, design, and engineering) to scope, design, and ship product improvements from concept to production.

Own technical decisions for the features you build, balancing customer impact, scalability, and long-term maintainability.

Develop robust tools and services that support our growing image build system, ensuring it scales alongside new product capabilities.

Contribute to a team culture that values craftsmanship, ownership, and continuous improvement.

What we're looking for:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

5+ years of experience in software development, with strong fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, compilers, Makefiles, and toolchains

A product mindset — genuine interest in building features end-to-end and understanding how technical choices translate into customer value

Expertise with containers, container registries, Docker, Kubernetes, and the broader ecosystem

Experience with Terraform or other Infrastructure as Code tools, including designing reusable, well-organized modules

Experience writing services or tools in Go

Strong communication skills, proficiency in English, and the ability to work autonomously, take initiative, and proactively seek help when needed

Nice to haves:

Author and/or contributor to open-source projects

Explore Our Work

Dive into the practical side of what we do at Chainguard. These resources provide a hands-on look at our processes and offer an opportunity for in-depth understanding of our product offerings and the technology behind them.

Chainguard Academy

https://www.chainguard.dev

Base Salary Range
$157,000 $184,000 USD

About Us

We live and breathe our company values:

We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.

We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.

We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.

We trust each other and assume good intentions — We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions.

A few of the benefits we offer:

Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.

Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).

100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.

∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need – to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.

18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.

If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice .

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