Principal Solutions Architect (East Coast or Central)

About this role

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.

We are seeking a highly consultative Principal Solutions Architect to support our most important customers. This role is a critical technical position, spanning both product development and pre and post sales customer motions.

You will act as a trusted technical lead and thought leader, partnering closely with Account Executives, Solutions Engineers, Post Sales, and Product teams to drive measurable business and technical value through

- High priority customer technical leadership

- Docker field technical leadership

This role reports to the Director of Solutions Architecture and operates at the intersection of technical depth, business acumen, and thought leadership.

RESPONSIBILITIES

High priority customer technical leadership

- Work with Docker’s most important customers and cross functional Docker teams to accelerate the customer’s container and AI journeys, focusing on developer workflows

- Engage with customer teams and cross functional Docker teams to gather customer’s technical/business goals and challenges related to their container and AI journey.

- Create and manage engagement plans that span existing products and new Docker offerings to achieve critical business goals.

- Oversee “design partner” rapid prototyping engagements with Docker engineering and customer teams to validate customer-product fit for new use cases

- Work with Docker teams to create/manage/deliver custom demos and content aligned to customer use cases.

- Deliver high-impact enablement and best practices content to customer audiences from developer to C level.

- Ability to travel up to 50% domestically and internationally as a senior representative of Docker to prospective clients, customers, and technical alliance partners.

Docker field technical leadership (regional/area of responsibility)

- Be a thought leader for a particular area of responsibility both internal and external to Docker, working with fellow Dockhands to create/manage/deliver content

- Gather field feedback from customer teams and Docker pre and post sales teams

- Coordinate with Field CTO and other Solutions Architects to prioritize/contextualize/correlate field requests into a cohesive set of prioritized requests to the product/engineering teams.

- Work directly with Docker product/engineering teams on workflows and feature alignment to customer use cases prioritized by revenue impact.

- Be customer zero for new functionality produced by Docker product/engineering teams

- Give input on internal technical enablement and customer enablement needs, and review enablement content

- Assist the sales enablement team with internal technical enablement for new products and services.

QUALIFICATIONS

- Proven experience as a Sales Engineer, Solutions Engineer, or Solution Architect in complex enterprise environments.

- Excellent communication, influence, and stakeholder management skills.

- Experience in managing customer relationships at the technical and business level.

- Experience presenting solutions and demonstrations to small and large audiences, virtually and in person.

- Experience interfacing with internal product/software teams, including technical support, product, and engineering, to enhance documentation, enablement, and product features to improve customer experience and enablement.

- Experience developing application code, and a clear understanding of the challenges developers experience on a daily basis.

- Ability to solve technical problems and translate customer experience to actionable feedback for engineering.

- Experience developing collateral to assist customers with best-practice adoption.

- Solid understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), containers, DevOps, and modern application architectures.

- Experience with Docker, container ecosystems, or adjacent technologies strongly preferred.

- Development, Agentic AI dev, Software Development Lifecycle and/or Software Supply Chain Security experience strongly preferred.

- Must be fluent in English

- Willingness to travel up to 50% domestically and internationally as a senior representative of Docker to prospective clients, customers, and technical alliance partners.

WHAT TO EXPECT

FIRST 30 DAYS

- You will be welcomed with a first-in-class onboarding experience that includes equipment setup, a sweet swag package, and a collaborative training program

- You will learn how to navigate through award-winning sales tools such as; Salesforce, Outreach, Sigma, and Opine.

- Actively engage with senior stakeholders, and manage relationships with clients

- You will work closely with your peers and shadow customer meetings to develop strategies to advocate for our customers.

- At the end of your first month, you will have a proficient grasp of the tools and activities necessary to be successful in your role.

FIRST 60 DAYS

- You will be laser-focused on supporting the sales and customer success teams during your second month.

- You will have connected with all of your team members.

- You will gain in-depth knowledge of Docker’s products and how they impact our customers.

- You will have an advanced understanding of tools, activities, and best practices to be successful in your role.

FIRST 90 DAYS

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