Director of Solutions Engineering, Docker
€175-250k
OTE
+ Equity
More information about location
App development platform
Be an early applicant
App development platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
€175-250k
OTE
+ Equity
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To simplify the lives of developers building world-changing apps.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years of experience in technical sales or pre-sales for distributed systems, developer platforms, or cloud infrastructure, including supporting enterprise accounts
- 5+ years in management, including hiring, mentoring, and rapidly scaling high-performing pre-sales or solutions engineering teams
- Track record of building and scaling teams in fast-moving, high-growth technology segments where requirements change constantly
- Proven success leading teams that support software supply chain security, security governance, DevSecOps, or developer productivity technologies
- Familiarity with AI Governance and AI-driven development, and the ability to keep a team current in a rapidly evolving space
- Deep understanding of containerization, cloud-native architectures, CI/CD, and developer tools
- Demonstrated ability to build scalable SE enablement (onboarding, learning paths, technical deep-dives)
- Strong communication and executive presentation skills, with the ability to build trust across technical and business audiences and to partner as a peer with Sales leadership
What the job involves
- As Director of Solutions Engineering for EMEA, you will lead a high-performing, fully remote pre-sales organization of 6 SEs, nearly doubling by end of fiscal year, responsible for technical alignment and customer success across Docker's largest accounts in the region
- You will partner directly with EMEA Sales Directors as a peer to align SE coverage with a fast-growing book of business, and collaborate closely with Sales, Product, and Engineering to turn rapid change into consistent technical wins and clear business value
- Make it the team's number-one focus, owning the technical win on Docker's largest AI Governance opportunities across EMEA
- Keep the team ahead of a fast-moving segment where customer requirements, Docker's products, and the competitive landscape are all changing constantly, and translate that change into current demos, proofs-of-value, and sales plays
- Partner with Product and Engineering to feed AI Governance customer requirements into roadmap and prioritization, and to get the team early access to new releases
- Hire, onboard, and ramp SEs quickly to meet AI Governance pipeline demand
- Build and maintain SE enablement programs and learning paths that make new hires productive fast and keep the team current as products and use cases evolve
- Operate as a player/coach, running the full management cadence (1:1s, pipeline syncs, QBRs, enablement) while staying close to the technical win on marquee accounts
- Balance SE coverage and workload across a growing roster of Account Executives so the highest-value opportunities are well supported
- Partner with the EMEA Sales organization to drive technical closure, guiding discovery, solution design, and proof-of-value to achieve customer success and sales goals
- Own the technical-win motion on Docker's largest accounts, including AI Governance, Sandboxes, Docker Hardened Image, MCP Catalog, and runtime container security
- Establish repeatable processes for discovery, solution design, and proof validation that highlight Docker's differentiated value
- Operational Excellence & Cross-Functional Leadership
- Define metrics, performance standards, and success measures for technical sales excellence, and manage to them
- Partner with Sales leadership on capacity planning, team design, and headcount to support a rapidly growing team
- Contribute to the SE career framework and broader Customer Engineering enablement initiatives
- Coach, mentor, and empower your team to engage effectively with enterprise customers and communicate complex technical concepts clearly
- First 30 Days
- Onboard on Docker's platform with a focus on the AI Governance portfolio, key customers, and EMEA go-to-market strategy
- Establish relationships with your team, EMEA Sales Directors, and cross-functional partners in Product and Engineering
- Assess current SE coverage across EMEA, AI Governance pipeline, and the team's enablement and hiring needs
- First 90 Days
- Develop and align a 12-month plan with Sales and Product leadership, including a hiring and capacity plan to scale the team against AI Governance demand
- Stand up or refresh SE learning paths that ramp new hires quickly and keep the team sharp on shifting customer requirements, competition, and product releases
- Begin executing on improving technical closure rates and SE coverage on the largest AI Governance opportunities
- One Year Outlook
- Lead a high-performing EMEA SE team that has built a culture of technical excellence — where SEs consistently drive technical closure by deeply understanding customer problems and confidently demonstrating how Docker solves them
- Establish AI Governance as a repeatable, well-instrumented technical-win motion with documented processes, plays, and metrics
- Become a trusted advisor and peer across Sales, Product, and Engineering by championing customer insights and technical excellence in a fast-moving market
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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