Senior Software Engineer, Desktop Platform (US East Coast) [Remote]

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!

Docker Desktop is one of the core pillars of the Docker suite—powering the workflows of millions of developers worldwide. According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Docker has been ranked the most-used, most-desired, and most-admired developer tool for multiple years running. Joining the Desktop Platform team means shaping the experience behind one of the most loved tools in modern software development.

The Desktop Platform team is responsible for the core lifecycle of Docker Desktop, including installation, updates, startup, and key shared components used by every Docker Desktop feature team. Our work ensures that Docker Desktop is reliable, and easy to adopt, while providing the modular foundations that enable other teams to build and ship with confidence.

In this role, you will design, develop, and maintain the systems that define the Docker Desktop experience end to end. You’ll improve update and install reliability, reduce startup time, strengthen diagnostics, refine shared platform components such as settings and feature flags, and contribute to the architectural evolution that accelerates development across all Desktop teams.

The successful candidate has strong systems and OS fundamentals and thinks like a platform engineer—designing modular, predictable components that scale across teams. They bring sound technical judgment, contribute thoughtfully to architectural discussions, and use data to guide decisions. They collaborate effectively across engineering groups and are comfortable owning ambiguous, cross-cutting problems that shape the long-term health of Docker Desktop.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain core lifecycle components of Docker Desktop, including installation, update, startup, and shared platform systems.

• Collaborate closely with product teams to ensure seamless integration with shared platform components.

• Contribute to documentation, knowledge sharing, and technical discussions that raise the clarity and quality of engineering within the Desktop ecosystem.

• Write high-quality code with strong test coverage (unit, integration, and end-to-end) and support healthy engineering practices across the team.

• Collaborate with our Delivery team on CI, release pipeline reliability, and lifecycle automation improvements that support faster and safer Desktop releases, especially when cross-team coordination is required.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building backend or systems software, ideally in Go or similar languages.

• Experience working on cross-platform desktop applications or lifecycle components (installers, updaters, system services).

• Demonstrated ability to design modular, maintainable system components that scale across teams.

• Comfortable working with observability, telemetry pipelines, performance metrics, and system health diagnostics.

• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work through ambiguity and cross-cutting technical challenges.

• Excellent communication skills for cross-team collaboration, design reviews, and technical documentation.

• Understanding of operating system internals, installers/updaters, virtualization, networking, or OS-level APIs.

• Experience with CI/CD systems, build pipelines, or release engineering workflows is a plus.

We know that great candidates don’t always meet 100% of the qualifications listed. If you're excited about this role and believe you can have an impact, we encourage you to apply—even if your experience doesn’t perfectly align with every requirement.

What to Expect

First 30 Days

• Meet your team, your onboarding buddy, and key collaborators across Docker Desktop.

• Set up your development environment and become familiar with the Desktop Platform architecture, lifecycle systems, and key internal components.

• Contribute your first small changes—bug fixes, reliability improvements, or performance tweaks.

• Participate in design discussions and pair programming to gain exposure to our tooling and workflows.

First 90 Days

• Drive or co-drive a larger feature, from design to development.

• Present findings, technical proposals, or insights to the team through proposal reviews or internal demos.

• Influence roadmap priorities based on what you’ve learned about the system’s strengths, gaps, and opportunities.

One Year Outlook (First Year)

• Deliver measurable impact with the team.

• Lead architectural or cross-cutting platform initiatives that improve development velocity or user experience.

• Help shape long-term technical direction with well-considered proposals and influence cross-team engineering practices.

• Become a go-to engineer for complex issues and a trusted partner to teams building on top of the platform.

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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