Senior Software Engineer (Sustaining Automation)

Canada - Remote; Europe - Remote; United States - RemoteRemotePosted 27 days ago

Role Overview

Chainguard is hiring a Senior Software Engineer (Sustaining Automation). This is a full-time remote role, with the team based in Canada - Remote; Europe - Remote; United States - Remote. Part of Chainguard's Risk hiring, posted 3 weeks ago. Full responsibilities, required qualifications, and the apply link are listed in the description below.

Salary Context

Salary is not disclosed in this posting. Market median for Senior-level Risk roles is $140k-$170k (based on 121 comparable listings). Many employers share specifics during the interview process or after an initial screen.

Resume Keywords to Include

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GoDockerKubernetesLinuxSnowflakeSparkORDesign Systems

Job description

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.

Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.

Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

Who we are

At Chainguard, we are on a mission to secure the software supply chain by default. Our team is founded by the industry's leading experts on open source software, security and cloud native development.

Chainguard's product portfolio includes Chainguard Images and Chainguard Services. Customers range from Fortune 500 companies in banking, fintech, government and infrastructure to startups and SMBs. Join us as we help organizations secure their software supply chain from source to production.

The role, in a nutshell

Chainguard delivers the industry's most secure container images: minimal, zero-CVE, rebuilt daily from source. We're building a new team focused on automation and tooling to accelerate how we deliver images at scale.

As a Senior Engineer, you'll be the technical leader for this greenfield effort. You'll design systems, build AI-powered tooling, and shape the future of our fulfillment platform. You'll work closely with a small team of engineers, guiding technical decisions and raising the bar for engineering quality.

This is a high-impact role at the intersection of developer tooling, AI/agents, and supply chain security.

What you'll do

Architect the automation platform: Design the end-to-end system that orchestrates package creation, test generation, and image building. Own the technical vision and make decisions that will scale.

Build AI-powered tooling: Develop LLM-integrated, agentic pipelines for manifest generation, test scaffolding, and validation. Design prompt architectures, evaluation loops, and quality gates.

Write production Go: This is a hands on role! You'll develop CLI tools, services, and integrations alongside your team.

Build quality tooling: Develop tooling and automation that improves customer reliability, including test generators, validation frameworks, and quality gates.

Shape the roadmap: Collaborate with engineering leadership to identify the highest-impact problems and ensure they get solved. Participate in long-term planning for the organization.

What we're looking for

5-7 years of software engineering experience, with a track record of designing and building complex systems
Strong Go expertise
Experience with AI/LLM integration: building systems that use language models for code generation, automation, or developer tooling. Familiarity with prompt engineering, evaluation, and guardrails
Systems architecture skills: ability to design loosely-coupled, scalable systems and make pragmatic trade-offs
Experience building developer tools, CLIs, or automation platforms
Deep Linux and build systems knowledge: experience with package managers (apk, apt, rpm), build tools (Make, Bazel, language-specific toolchains), and containerization
Container ecosystem expertise: Docker, OCI, container registries, Kubernetes
Strong communication skills: ability to write clear technical documents, work autonomously, and collaborate across teams

Nice to haves

Contributions to open-source projects
Familiarity with software supply chain security (SBOM, provenance, signing)
Experience with melange, apko, or Wolfi
Understanding of compliance frameworks (FedRAMP, FIPS, STIG)

Base Salary Range

$157,000—$184,000 USD

About Us

We live and breathe our company values:

We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.
We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.
We trust each other and assume good intentions — We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions.

A few of the benefits we offer:

Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).
100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need – to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.

If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice.

About Chainguard

Chainguard

chainguard.dev

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I apply for the Senior Software Engineer (Sustaining Automation) position at Chainguard?

Use the Apply button above to submit your application directly to Chainguard. Most applications take less than 5 minutes if your resume and contact details are ready, and you'll be routed to the employer's official application system to finish.

Is the Senior Software Engineer (Sustaining Automation) role at Chainguard remote?

Yes. This is a remote role. The team is based in Canada - Remote; Europe - Remote; United States - Remote, but the position itself does not require relocating to that office.

What does a Senior Software Engineer (Sustaining Automation) at Chainguard earn?

Chainguard has not disclosed a salary range in this posting. Many employers share specifics later in the interview process; you can also ask during a recruiter screen if compensation transparency is important to you.

When was the Senior Software Engineer (Sustaining Automation) role at Chainguard posted?

This role was posted on June 17, 2026 (27 days ago). It's still listed as actively hiring; we re-confirm openings against the source system multiple times per day and remove closed roles.

How much experience does the Senior Software Engineer (Sustaining Automation) role at Chainguard require?

This is a senior-level position. Most senior roles call for 5+ years of directly relevant experience. Chainguard lists their specific requirements in the description below, so review the must-have qualifications closely before applying.

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