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. , 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. This is a highly impactful, highly visible role in a fast-paced, product-driven environment. You’ll design and build backend services and APIs that are consumed across multiple product lines, partnering closely with Product and the Experience team to ship features that customers rely on every day.

We’re looking for someone who wants to move quickly, cares deeply about quality and reliability, and is energized by working across products rather than owning a single narrow service.

What You’Ll Do

Design, build, and evolve customer-facing backend services and public APIs by understanding how different Chainguard products and customer segments use shared platform capabilities, and ensuring APIs and services work well for all of them. Own features end-to-end: from design through implementation, rollout, and iteration, in close partnership with Product Management and the Experience (front-end) team. Create technical design documents and drive your own design plans with clarity and confidence.

What We’Re Looking For

Strong backend engineering experience 5+ years of experience building production services and APIs in a modern cloud environment. Proficiency with Go (Golang) or strong readiness to ramp quickly — we write everything in Go and expect you to get there fast. Experience designing, implementing, and evolving public APIs that are consumed externally and internally across multiple products or services.

You can talk about topics like versioning, backwards compatibility, auth, and usability from real-world experience. Familiarity with microservices and cloud-native architectures, including containers and Kubernetes, and how to build services that are observable and resilient in production. Excellent communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to work with PMs, designers, and engineers across multiple product lines.

Proven ability to thrive in a remote, startup environment: A genuine interest in a high-paced, high-intensity, “ship it” culture where you’re self-directed, comfortable with ambiguity, and working with people who will challenge you to grow as a developer. Additionally, we would love it if you have Prior experience building platform or shared services that span multiple products or customer experiences. Experience in the cloud-native, containers, or security ecosystem, or with tools in the broader CNCF space.

Meaningful open source contributions, especially as a maintainer or regular contributor in relevant projects. 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.

Senior Software Engineer (Customer Platform)