Director, Engineering, Platform (West Coast, Seattle Preferred)

At Docker, we make app development easier so developers can focus on what matters. Our remote-first team spans the globe, united by a passion for innovation and great developer experiences. With over 20 million monthly users and 20 billion image pulls, Docker is the #1 tool for building, sharing, and running apps—trusted by startups and Fortune 100s alike. We’re growing fast and just getting started. Come join us for a whale of a ride!

This is a remote position open to candidates located on the West Coast, with a preference for those based in the Seattle, WA area. We also offer an optional office space in Seattle for anyone who prefers an on-site or hybrid work environment.

Role Overview

We're seeking an experienced Director of Platform Infrastructure to lead critical aspects of Docker's infrastructure platform. In this role, you'll oversee the reliability, efficiency, and developer experience of foundational systems that power Docker's products and services. You'll lead teams responsible for site reliability engineering, cloud cost optimization, internal developer tooling, and core infrastructure components including our Envoy-based service mesh and networking layer.

This is a high-impact leadership role where you'll shape the technical strategy for platform infrastructure while building and mentoring world-class engineering teams. You'll work closely with engineering leaders across the organization to ensure Docker's infrastructure is reliable, cost-effective, and enables rapid product innovation.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy

Define and execute the technical vision and roadmap for platform infrastructure, balancing reliability, performance, cost, and developer velocity

Build, mentor, and retain high-performing teams across reliability engineering, FinOps, developer tooling, and foundational infrastructure

Partner with VP of Engineering and peer directors to align infrastructure investments with company priorities and product roadmaps

Establish engineering standards, best practices, and operational excellence across all platform infrastructure domains

Drive organizational culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and technical excellence

Reliability & Operations

Own end-to-end reliability strategy for Docker's production infrastructure, including SLO / SLI frameworks, incident management, and on-call processes

Lead efforts to improve system observability, monitoring, and alerting across the platform

Drive post-incident review processes and ensure learnings translate into systemic improvements

Partner with product engineering teams to build reliability into application architecture

Balance investment between reliability improvements and feature delivery

Cloud Cost Optimization

Develop and execute FinOps strategy to optimize Docker's cloud infrastructure spend across AWS, Azure, and GCP

Implement cost visibility, attribution, and chargeback mechanisms across engineering teams

Identify and execute on cost optimization opportunities including resource rightsizing, commitment management, and architectural efficiency

Build culture of cost awareness across engineering organization while maintaining performance and reliability standards

Partner with finance and business teams on cloud budget planning and forecasting

Developer Tooling & Experience

Own the strategy and execution for internal developer platforms and tooling that accelerate engineering productivity

Lead development and maintenance of CI / CD pipelines, build systems, and deployment automation

Champion developer experience improvements across the engineering organization

Build self-service capabilities that enable product teams to operate independently

Measure and improve developer productivity metrics and engineering velocity

Foundational Infrastructure

Oversee critical infrastructure components including Envoy-based service mesh, API gateways, and networking infrastructure

Drive adoption of modern infrastructure patterns including service mesh, zero-trust networking, and platform engineering

Ensure foundational components are scalable, secure, and well-documented

Partner with security and compliance teams to ensure infrastructure meets regulatory and security requirements

Balance technical debt reduction with new capability development

Cross-functional Collaboration

Work closely with product engineering, security, data platform, and business operations teams

Serve as infrastructure subject matter expert in architecture reviews and technical planning

Communicate infrastructure strategy, roadmaps, and constraints to technical and non-technical stakeholders

Build strong relationships with vendor partners and open source communities

Required Qualifications

10+ years of experience in infrastructure engineering, SRE, or platform engineering roles

5+ years of engineering management experience, including leading managers and directors

Deep technical expertise in cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP), container orchestration (Kubernetes), and distributed systems

Proven track record building and scaling reliable, high-performance infrastructure at significant scale

Strong understanding of service mesh technologies (Envoy, Istio, Linkerd) and modern networking concepts

Experience implementing SRE practices, SLO / SLI frameworks, and incident management processes

Demonstrated success in cloud cost optimization and FinOps practices

Experience building developer platforms and internal tooling that improve engineering productivity

Strong technical communication skills with ability to influence across all levels of the organization

Track record of building diverse, inclusive high-performing teams

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

Preferred Qualifications

Experience in container and cloud-native technologies

Background in both startup and large-scale enterprise environments

Experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform, Pulumi) and GitOps practices

Knowledge of observability tools and practices (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, etc.)

Contributions to open source infrastructure projects

Experience with multi-cloud and hybrid cloud architectures

Understanding of security, compliance, and regulatory requirements for infrastructure

Track record of technical writing and public speaking

Why Docker?

At Docker, you'll have the opportunity to work on infrastructure that directly impacts millions of developers globally. Our engineering culture values technical excellence, ownership, and continuous learning. We believe in empowering our teams to make decisions, take calculated risks, and learn from failures. You'll work alongside talented engineers who are passionate about building robust, scalable systems that enable the future of software development.

We use Covey as part of our hiring and / or promotional process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an AEDT. As part of the evaluation process we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound on April 13, 2024.

Please see the independent bias audit report covering our use of Covey here.

Perks

Freedom & flexibility; fit your work around your life

Designated quarterly Whaleness Days

Home office setup; we want you comfortable while you work

16 weeks of paid Parental leave

Technology stipend equivalent to $100 net / month

PTO plan that encourages you to take time to do the things you enjoy

Quarterly, company-wide hackathons

Training stipend for conferences, courses and classes

Equity; we are a growing start-up and want all employees to have a share in the success of the company

Docker Swag

Medical benefits, retirement and holidays vary by country

Docker embraces diversity and equal opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better our company will be.

Due to the remote nature of this role, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship.

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