Manager of Engineering, Docker
Secure Build
CA$244.6-392.1k
US Salary Range $174,900 – $282,700. + Offers equity for all locations
More information about location
App development platform
Be an early applicant
App development platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
CA$244.6-392.1k
US Salary Range $174,900 – $282,700. + Offers equity for all locations
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To simplify the lives of developers building world-changing apps.
Role
Who you are
- The successful candidate leads first
- They're an experienced engineering manager at their best turning a senior team into a high-performing, value-delivering part of the wider Docker org: getting the process and team mechanics right, partnering well with Product, and navigating the personalities on and around the team
- What sets them apart is that they stay deep in the technical work rather than steering from a distance
- They're active in technical design and in the PRs, they help shape the technical direction, and they're happy to pick up code where it moves things forward
- We're not after a 50-50 player-coach, and we're not after someone who's left the engineering behind either; the balance tilts to leading, but they're hands-on enough to be properly in the detail with the team
- The team has strong technical leadership across it, and direction is set together rather than by any one person, so this isn't about being the best engineer in the room or the deepest supply-chain-security expert
- It's about being engaged and credible enough to be a real part of how the team sets its direction, not standing apart from it
- They care about security broadly: how modern attacks actually work, the OWASP Top 10, and where a build pipeline is exposed
- They lead through judgement, unblocking, and direction-setting rather than process for its own sake, because that's what a senior, autonomy-heavy team responds to
- They're comfortable owning the operational reality of production systems and on-call, and they're energised rather than thrown by ambiguity
- Above all they care about growing the engineers around them and shipping something customers actually trust
- 5+ years managing high-performing engineering teams, including engineers at or above their own level of technical seniority, with a track record of growing and retaining senior individual contributors
- 8+ 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
- A leader first: strong on team process and mechanics, on partnering with Product, and on reading and navigating the personalities on and around a team to make it more than the sum of its parts
- Comfortable inheriting a team they didn't build: earning the trust of experienced engineers, and owning the full range of performance conversations, including the difficult ones, fairly and directly
- Technically deep and still hands-on: recent enough engineering chops to be active in design and code review, be a real part of setting technical direction with the team, and write code where it helps. Not the best engineer in the room or the deepest domain expert, but not a manager who's left the technical detail behind either
- A strong interest in security: how recent attacks have actually worked, the OWASP Top 10, and the build threat model. Familiarity with software supply chain security (SLSA, in-toto, provenance, signing such as cosign, SBOMs, vulnerability scanning) is valued, but we care more about security instinct and appetite than a checklist of tools
- Understanding of CI/CD and build-system internals, container images and image hardening, and OCI registry mechanics
- Experience operating production infrastructure: on-call, incident response, SLOs, and the realities of keeping high-traffic services healthy
- Comfortable leading a distributed, remote-first team across European and US time zones, with a high degree of autonomy
- Strong written and verbal communication, and a habit of staying close to customers
- Hands-on familiarity with Go is a plus; it's the team's primary language
What the job involves
- The Secure Build team builds and operates the infrastructure behind Docker's container builds
- The team owns and runs Docker Build Cloud and Docker's Hub build systems, which run millions of builds a year for hundreds of organisations, and is building the next generation of that: secure, sandboxed CI that isolates each build step and produces hardened images with strong, verifiable provenance, including for customers in regulated and air-gapped environments
- A current focus is a hardened build runner that executes each workflow step inside its own micro-VM sandbox
- We're looking for an Engineering Manager to lead this team
- It's a small, very senior group that recently came together, with strong technical leadership spread across it
- You'll own the team's delivery, growth, and operational excellence, keep its high-scale production systems healthy, and be a real part of setting the team's technical direction alongside the engineers who lead on different parts of the system
- Lead a team of senior engineers operating Docker Build Cloud and Hub's build systems and building Docker's next generation of secure build infrastructure
- Own delivery: turn an ambiguous, high-stakes roadmap, including time-bound commitments to regulated and federal customers, into a concrete plan the team can execute predictably
- Get the team's process and mechanics right, and partner closely with Product to turn strategy into a roadmap the team believes in
- Stay deep in the technical work: active in design discussions and code review, hands-on in the code where it helps, rather than steering from a distance
- Be a real part of setting the team's technical direction, working with the engineers who lead on different parts of the system, while giving the whole team room to own technical decisions
- This role may require participation in an on-call rotation to provide support outside of standard business hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays, as needed
- Be accountable for the reliability and operational excellence of the team's production services, including a healthy, humane on-call rotation
- Own the growth, development, and performance of each engineer on the team, and hire to strengthen it
- Work across the wider org - Product, sales, commercial and legal, the Hub/registry team, and security - to align the team and shield it from churn
- Hold a high bar for engineering excellence and raise the team's security hygiene
- First 30 days
- Get to know the team, the systems, and the commitments before changing anything. Build relationships with each engineer, understand the roadmap and what the team is building, and get hands-on enough with Build Cloud and the inherited systems to understand the on-call load you're taking on
- First 90 days
- Own the delivery plan with the team and Product. Get the on-call rotation to a healthy, sustainable place. Be the team's point of contact across the wider org
- One year Outlook
- The team is delivering against its roadmap and operating its production systems reliably, the on-call and delivery cadence are sustainable, and the team is growing both in capability and in number
Our take
Docker supplies a hub and desktop solution to simplify the workflow of app development teams. Originally known for popularising the idea of containerising software, it saw itself outpaced by Kubernetes. However, the company has identified a problem with the growing complexity of containerisation, with some apps consisting of dozens or even hundreds of containers - which is what it now addresses.
Docker has had a difficult time in the past, with 2019 seeing it sell off its enterprise business, reduce its workforce by hundreds, and change its leadership team. As a well known brand and ecosystem for containerisation, however, it aims to lure developers back to its product as well as to take advantage of the growing global demand for app development.
Returning to focus on developers rather than large companies was certainly a gamble, but one that seems to have paid off. The company has returned to profitability and raised Series C funding in 2022, which has been used to hire new talent, ramping up its business, and continuing to develop and refine its product. On top of this bounce back to success, it's also embarked on a series of acquisitions to bolster its business.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
47% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 13 rounds)
Mar 2022
$105m
SERIES C
Mar 2021
$23m
SERIES B
Total funding: $526m
Company benefits
- 100% company paid medical premiums for employees and dependents
- Flexible Time Off Policy
- Employer Paid Holidays
- Generous Parental Leave (after 6 months of employment)
- Home Office Set Up Budget
- Monthly Technology Stipend
- Training Allowances
- Life and Disability Insurance
- Retirement Plans
- Virtual and In-Person Social Events
- Docker Swag
- Quarterly Hackathons
Company HQ
China Basin, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Don Johnson
(CEO)Prior to joining Docker in 2025, Don spent nearly 9 years at Oracle in various Engineering/VP roles. Before that, they spent over 7 years at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer and Principal Engineer.
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