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ChainguardStaff Software Engineer, Containers
Chainguard is looking for a Staff Software Engineer, Containers to join its remote team. In this role, you will design and ship the features, services, and…
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About this role
Staff Software Engineer, Containers at Chainguard is a full-time role. Work arrangement: Remote. Location: Applicants in United States only. The listed pay is USD 205,000 - 231,000/yr. It was posted on Oct 28, 2026. This listing is paused and not taking applications at the moment.
Job Description
Chainguard is looking for a Staff Software Engineer, Containers to join its remote team. In this role, you will design and ship the features, services, and build systems behind Chainguard Containers while leading small sub-teams of two to four engineers. You will build secure foundational technology including hardened container images, the registry that serves them, and adoption tooling for human engineers and AI agents.
This position balances technical leadership with hands-on development. You will architect major new features, solve complex system-level trade-offs, and mentor other engineers while keeping systems healthy through proper observability and on-call practices. The ideal candidate has experience building and operating software used by paying customers, operates with high agency, and is comfortable using agentic coding tools daily.
Chainguard offers a remote-first work environment with flexible time off, fully covered health, vision, and dental insurance for employees and dependents, stock options with a 10-year exercise window, and paid parental leave.
Responsibilities
- Architect and drive the delivery of major new features and services for Chainguard Containers from concept through production.
- Make and own high-leverage architectural and product trade-offs across teams.
- Work with AI coding agents during building, reviewing, and operations while setting safe standards for their use.
- Collaborate across team boundaries and investigate problems spanning services, customer calls, or support tickets.
- Mentor and level up other engineers through design reviews and paired work.
- Partner with product and engineering leadership to help shape the technical roadmap.
- Maintain system health through observability, on-call participation, and addressing recurring issues.
- Write design notes, decision records, and status updates for a distributed team.
Requirements
- Minimum of 5 years of experience building and operating software used by paying customers.
- Demonstrated experience leading at least one multi-engineer project end to end, preferably at a startup or hyper-growth company.
- Expertise in Go, including designing a Go service from scratch, strong API design, databases, caching, and cloud infrastructure on GCP or AWS.
- Deep knowledge of containers, container registries, the OCI image format, and Kubernetes.
- Daily use of agentic coding tools with a track record of adapting team workflows around them.
- Excellent written English communication skills and experience on a distributed, remote-first team.
Qualifications
- Background in software supply chain security such as SBOMs, Sigstore signing, or SLSA.
- Familiarity with Chainguard open-source tools including Wolfi, apko, and melange.
- Experience with Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code tools.
- Experience authoring or maintaining open-source projects.
- Non-traditional path into engineering.
Core Skills
Benefits
- Flexible and remote-first culture with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone, and internet
- Stock options upon hire and promotion with secondary offerings and a 10-year exercise window
- 100% covered health, vision, and dental insurance premiums for employees and dependents
- Flexible time off
- Paid parental leave offering 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
What is the salary range for the Staff Software Engineer, Containers role?
The base salary ranges from USD 205,000 to 231,000 per year.
Where is this position located?
The role is remote, with the United States preferred, and is also available to candidates in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Does Chainguard provide visa sponsorship or relocation?
No, visa sponsorship and relocation are not available for this position.
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