Principal Product Manager, Docker
Sandboxes
CA$255.5-365k
United States: $184,100 - $263,000 + equity
More information about location
App development platform
Be an early applicant
App development platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
CA$255.5-365k
United States: $184,100 - $263,000 + equity
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To simplify the lives of developers building world-changing apps.
Role
Who you are
- You have deep empathy for the needs of developers and are obsessed with talking to your users
- You have prior professional experience as a software engineer, ideally in systems, infrastructure, platform engineering, developer tools, or cloud
- You have strong technical familiarity with sandboxes/microVMs, containers, virtualization technologies, and hypervisors, including the isolation and security boundaries each provides
- You understand the building blocks of modern developer infrastructure, including Linux, container runtimes, orchestration, networking, storage, APIs, and cloud services
- You have experience designing, building, or operating systems that execute customer-provided, untrusted, or agent-generated code at scale
- You are comfortable interacting with a command-line interface and discussing APIs, SDKs, and technical architecture with engineers and developers
- You have experience building B2B or SaaS products, or a background in public cloud and developer infrastructure
- You understand software supply chain and software security concerns, including multi-tenant isolation, identity, secrets management, observability, and reliability
- You can break down complex technical problems into small, releasable, user-valuable features
- You can explain complex ideas simply and communicate effectively in writing, verbally, and visually across diverse stakeholders
- You can analyze qualitative and quantitative data to inform decisions, define success metrics, and prioritize investments
- You have a collaborative approach, experience running products from greenfield to scale, and the ability to work with fast-moving, distributed, cross-functional teams. You are a doer as well as a strategist; we are small and need all hands on deck
What the job involves
- The Products Team at Docker is looking for a Principal Product Manager to lead components of Docker Sandboxes
- You will own and drive this strategic product area from high-level concept design through delivery, adoption, and operation
- You will help shape how developers and AI agents use fast, secure, isolated environments across local and cloud workflows
- You will work closely with developers inside and outside of Docker, our customers, and our partners to expand our open ecosystem offering and provide value
- As the company and ecosystem grow, you will help foster teams eager to continuously build, measure, and learn
- To thrive in this role, you will need experience working with developers, deep technical fluency in systems and developer infrastructure, and prior experience as a software engineer
- You will need to understand containers, sandboxes/microVMs, virtualization technologies, hypervisors, the software development lifecycle, and how untrusted or agent-generated code can be safely executed and orchestrated
- You will need a relentless drive to try new things and an eye for detail
- Your long-term success will depend on your ability to own the product roadmap, earn the trust of the developer community, and scale reliable services
- Most importantly, you will need to be comfortable taking ownership of big objectives with big goals, working with a cross-functional team, and maintaining a bias for action
- You own Docker Sandboxes, its long-term vision, roadmap, revenue, adoption, and results
- You believe in and can succinctly articulate our customers, their workflows, and their pain points. You empathize with the world they live in and the security, performance, compatibility, and cost constraints they work through
- You will engage deeply with developers building AI agents, coding environments, CI and testing systems, and other workloads that require secure, isolated execution, finding solutions for today while optimizing for tomorrow's vision
- You enjoy building infrastructure products that are easy to adopt and use. You will turn complex tradeoffs across isolation, startup time, performance, density, networking, storage, and cost into simple product experiences
- You are comfortable with ambiguity and will guide product definition, feature prioritization, and scope in concert with engineering, design, security, operations, and go-to-market teams
- You are a fan of iterative development, working with customers and cross-functional teams to hypothesize, measure adoption and impact, learn from releases, and continually improve the roadmap
- ---First 30 days---
- Get to know Docker: our vision, mission, and values
- Understand the Docker Sandboxes team's mission, product strategy, and technical architecture
- Meet the team along with peers across the business unit and company
- Work closely with designers, researchers, engineers, security partners, and customers to understand user needs and current pain points
- Work with your manager and team to review and create quarterly goals
- Understand the product roadmap, key technical and business tradeoffs, and the data available to make data-driven decisions
- ---First 90 days---
- Understand the company's and business unit's product vision and how Docker Sandboxes contributes to it
- Provide clarity on product vision, target users, priority use cases, and how the team contributes to the overall success of Docker
- Develop a deep understanding of our developers and customers, how they use isolated environments, and why they choose Docker
- Shape the team roadmap and product strategy in close collaboration with design, engineering, security, and go-to-market peers
- Lead the definition of team OKRs and success metrics for the quarter, and provide clear progress reports
- ---One Year Outlook---
- Lead product initiatives across cross-functional teams that make secure, isolated execution simple and valuable for developers and AI agents
- Drive the long-term direction of Docker Sandboxes, including improvements to adoption, ecosystem integration, reliability, scale, unit economics, and ARR
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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