Staff Software Engineer, Chainguard

• 8+ years working in Java or similar ecosystems on build systems, packaging, or developer tooling, ideally on platform/infra or ecosystem teams
• Proven experience building and owning Gradle/Maven plugins, CI/CD automation, or internal frameworks/tools for Java libraries or services
• Deep familiarity with Gradle and Maven for building and packaging libraries (multi-module builds, dependency graphs/BOMs, publishing to registries)
• Strong background in orchestrating large codebases or mono-repos and fixing dependency and build failures in production environments
• Comfortable working with infrastructure code and tooling (e.g., Go-based systems, Terraform, CI/CD), alongside deep Java expertise
• Demonstrated ability to debug toolchain, compiler, and packaging issues at scale and drive them to resolution
• Experience with cloud-native environments: containers (Docker/OCI, Kubernetes), public cloud (GCP, AWS, or Azure), and modern CI/CD systems (e.g., GitHub Actions, Argo, Tekton, or similar)
• Excellent communication in a remote, distributed setup. Comfortable working across product, infra, and security, and mentoring peers at senior levels
• A staff-level ownership mindset: you define direction, own critical outcomes, and thrive in an early, high-impact area where engineers help set the roadmap

Desirable

• We’re hiring a Staff Software Engineer for Chainguard’s Libraries organization, focused on the Java ecosystem
• You’ll contribute to the technical direction for our Java libraries factory: secure, reliable, automated build and packaging pipelines that produce high-quality Java artifacts for customers and internal teams
• This is an infrastructure-focused role
• You’ll build systems and tooling used by many engineers, directly supporting Chainguard Libraries, one of our major product lines
• Own architecture and direction for Java ecosystem infrastructure, enabling secure, reproducible build, test, and distribution workflows for Java libraries and SDKs
• Design and maintain automation for building, updating, validating, and publishing Java artifacts, including vulnerability scanning, remediation, SBOMs, and provenance
• Build internal developer tools (Gradle/Maven plugins, CLIs, code generators) that improve how we build and maintain Java packages at scale
• Integrate deeply with Gradle and Maven and artifact repositories, solving complex dependency and module-resolution issues in large codebases and mono-repos
• Collaborate with product and engineering leadership to shape the Java libraries roadmap and deliver on key business outcomes for Chainguard Libraries
• Mentor and unblock other engineers through design reviews, documentation, and hands-on debugging of build and infrastructure issues
• Partner with Platform, Delivery, Sustaining, and Security to ensure Java pipelines and services meet reliability and security expectations