# Principal Software Engineer, Containers at Chainguard

- Company: Chainguard
- What the company does: Chainguard provides trusted open source artifacts for every layer of your modern software stack—containers, language libraries, and VM images. Backed by General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed.
- Company website: https://www.chainguard.dev/
- Type: Startups
- Level: Principal and up
- Location: United States - Remote
- Work setup: Remote
- Posted: 2026-10-16
- Apply by: 2026-11-30
- Apply: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/chainguard/jobs/4722145006?utm_source=1752vc&utm_medium=careers
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/chainguard-principal-software-engineer-containers/

## About the role

Chainguard Containers is our core product, and this team builds it. As Principal Software Engineer in Container Product Engineering you will be the most senior individual contributor on a team of about fifteen engineers, setting the technical direction for the product and leading its largest, most consequential projects from idea to customer. Found on 1752vc Careers, the job board for startup and VC roles.

## What they're looking for

- 10+ years building and operating software that paying customers use, including several years as the technical lead of large, multi-team projects at a startup or a company in hyper-growth
- Known in the field. Your work is visible outside your employer: open source you maintain, standards you helped shape, talks or writing that other engineers cite, or systems the industry knows you built
- A track record of technical leadership without authority: you have set direction for a team you did not manage, and the team delivered
- Experience forming and executing roadmaps with engineering and product leaders, including saying no, re-sequencing, and holding a date
- Judgment on trade-offs at the product level. You have made calls that moved a company's roadmap, and you can show what you gave up and why
- A systems thinker who designs for the whole path, from upstream source through build, signing, distribution, and the customer's runtime, and who sees second-order effects before they land

Tags: R&D Engineering

Source: 1752vc Careers, https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/chainguard-principal-software-engineer-containers/