Principal Sales Engineer, US Public Sector (East Coast Preferred)

About Docker

Docker has been one of the most loved brands in developer tooling, trusted by more than 20 million monthly users and over 20 billion container image pulls. From solo founders to the world's largest companies, developers rely on Docker to build, share, and run their applications across our suite of products including Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, and Docker Scout.

We are a globally distributed, remote-first team building the tools that define how software gets built and delivered. As AI agents redefine software development, Docker is at the center of that shift, providing the sandboxed environments, verified images, and secure infrastructure that make autonomous workflows trustworthy by default.

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Nowhere is that shift harder, or higher stakes, than in government. Federal agencies are being asked to adopt AI quickly while proving that every model, every artifact, and every build step is governed, attested, and auditable. We are hiring a Principal Sales Engineer to own the technical side of that conversation across the US Public Sector.

This is a single seat covering both the Department of War and Federal Civilian. You will be the technical face of Docker to agency CIOs, CISOs, program offices, and the platform teams who actually run the pipelines, partnering with our Federal Account Executives to shape requirements early and win competitive technical evaluations.

You will act as a trusted technical advisor and champion owner, partnering closely with Account Executives, Post Sales, Product, and our partner and reseller ecosystem to drive measurable mission and technical value through:

Technical Selling and Deal Shaping

AI Governance and Secure Software Supply Chain Thought Leadership

Federal Compliance and Accreditation Fluency

Technical Champion Ownership

Customer and Internal Advocacy

Competitive and Strategic Selling

This role reports to the Director of Solutions Engineering and operates at the intersection of technical depth, mission understanding, and competitive selling discipline.

Responsibilities

Technical Selling and Deal Shaping

Lead deep technical discovery across program offices, platform and DevSecOps teams, security organizations, and AI/ML groups to understand:

AI governance and responsible AI requirements, including agency guidance and NIST AI Risk Management Framework alignment

Software supply chain risk posture and secure software development expectations

Accreditation and authorization constraints, including ATO timelines and continuous authorization goals

Air-gapped, classified, and disconnected environment requirements

Shape technical requirements early in the acquisition cycle so that agency evaluation criteria reflect Docker's differentiated value in AI governance, container and artifact security, and software supply chain integrity.

Design, position, and execute structured PoCs and PoVs focused on:

Policy enforcement and policy-as-code

Image and artifact integrity, provenance, and attestation

SBOM generation and visibility

Hardened and minimal base images for regulated workloads, including FIPS and STIG-aligned variants

AI workload governance controls and sandboxed agentic development

Secure build pipelines in constrained and disconnected networks

Define clear success criteria, evaluation frameworks, and executive-ready value summaries that a program executive can carry into a funding conversation.

Influence decision-making through demos, workshops, architecture reviews, technical exchange meetings, and executive briefings.

Translate complex AI security and governance capabilities into mission outcomes for CIOs, CISOs, Chief Data and AI Officers, and program leadership.

AI Governance and Secure Software Supply Chain Thought Leadership

Establish credibility as a trusted advisor on:

Responsible AI development practices in government

Secure AI model and agent lifecycle management

Software supply chain integrity and provenance

Container and artifact security in accredited environments

DevSecOps practice in federal platform organizations

Guide agency teams in implementing governance controls across AI-enabled SDLC workflows, including identity and access governance for AI workloads and policy-as-code enforcement.

Represent Docker publicly in the federal community through industry days, agency technical exchange meetings, conference sessions, webinars, and written content such as reference architectures and whitepapers.

Federal Compliance and Accreditation Fluency

Serve as the team's subject matter expert on how Docker's products fit inside federal security and accreditation frameworks, and on what evidence agency assessors and authorizing officials will ask for.

Position and explain the compliance artifacts Docker Hardened Images produce, including FIPS image variants built on FIPS 140 validated cryptographic modules, STIG scan results aligned to the DoW General Purpose Operating System SRG, and the signed attestations that accompany both. Help customers understand precisely what those artifacts do and do not establish for their own authorization package.

Work fluently with the language and constraints of FedRAMP, NIST 800-53 and 800-171, the NIST Secure Software Development Framework, DISA STIGs and SRGs, DoW Impact Levels, and continuous ATO models.

Support responses to RFIs, RFPs, security questionnaires, and technical evaluation criteria, partnering with Sales, Legal, Product, and Security.

Advise on deployment patterns for on-premises, air-gapped, and government cloud environments, and work with partners and system integrators where they carry the delivery.

Technical Champion Ownership

Build, own, and expand relationships with technical champions across security, platform, DevSecOps, and AI teams inside agencies and their supporting integrators.

Leverage champion relationships to influence broader buying groups, shape requirements, and uncover expansion across programs and sub-agencies.

Maintain engagement beyond initial award so outcomes are realized and renewals and expansions are earned.

Customer and Internal Advocacy

Advocate for federal customer needs with Product and Engineering, providing clear, actionable feedback informed by field experience. You will be the primary voice inside Docker for what the public sector actually needs.

Coordinate with Post Sales and Support to ensure continuity across the customer lifecycle, including in environments where Docker staff have limited access.

Develop reusable technical assets (workshops, demos, reference architectures, compliance briefings, enablement content) that scale across agencies and across the wider Solutions Engineering team.

Competitive and Strategic Selling

Actively support competitive motions, identifying differentiation and influencing evaluation criteria throughout the acquisition cycle.

Partner with Account Executives, channel partners, and system integrators to develop technical win strategies for strategic federal programs.

Support the technical side of contract vehicle and partner-led motions where Docker is sold through a reseller or integrator.

Qualifications

Required

8+ years in technical pre-sales as a Sales Engineer, Solutions Engineer, or Solutions Architect, selling infrastructure software, developer tools, or security products into complex enterprise or government accounts.

3+ years selling into US Federal, covering DoW, Federal Civilian, or both, with a demonstrable record of technical wins inside federal acquisition cycles.

Working knowledge of federal security and accreditation frameworks: FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, DISA STIGs, DoW Impact Levels, and the ATO process.

Strong experience running competitive PoCs and PoVs with clearly defined success and exit criteria.

Solid understanding of containers, Kubernetes, CI/C