Senior Software Engineer (Containers)

About the role

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.

Requirements

• 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

Pay

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

Benefits

• 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.
• 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents.
• ∞ 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.