Chainguard
open source
SeniorSoftwareEngineer(GuardedOS)
Neural analysis suggests this role is
optimal for Senior candidates.
“Senior Software Engineer (Guarded OS) at Chainguard. Skills: backend or distributed systems, Go programming, Kubernetes, Cloud Run, production service operation, incident response, cloud-native service design, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines. Operate and develop the Elastic Build service. Maintain and improve Melange”
What You'll Achieve.
improving reliability, performance, resource usage, and multi-architecture support; keeping a human in the approval chain while removing every step that can be automated; reduce single points of knowledge; keep Chainguard OS up-to-date and secure
Industry & Context.
debugging and problem-solving skills across distributed systems; turn ambiguity into an action plan; execute without breaking things; clear eye on long-term maintainability; Create automated responses to common failure modes so human attention is reserved for novel problems
remote-first environment
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
4+ years of software engineering experience with backend or distributed systems, programming skills in Go, production services experience, Kubernetes operator or custom controller experience, Hands-on experience operating production services at scale, responded to real incidents, restored service, improved systems to prevent recurrence, Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Cloud Run, cloud-native service design, debugging and problem-solving skills across distributed systems, Able to work independently, communicate clearly in a remote-first environment
Nice to Have
Experience contributing to or maintaining build, packaging, or tooling projects, Observability and monitoring experience, Experience with Linux build or packaging systems, Understanding of dependency management and rebuild automation, Experience with ARM64 build environments, Familiarity with BigQuery or Looker Studio for data analysis
What You'll Do.
Operate and develop the Elastic Build service
Maintain and improve Melange
Design and build automation for rebuild and review workflows
Support shared library transitions using build-time and runtime dependency analysis
Create automated responses to common failure modes
Define and deliver a roadmap for build and update services within the OS team
Document systems thoroughly
Contribute to distro-level package updates
help keep Chainguard OS up-to-date and secure
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
communicate clearly in a remote-first environment; trust each other and assume good intentions; transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions
Communication Scope
communicate clearly
Process & Methodology
Define and deliver a roadmap
Full 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. The role, in a nutshell: Chainguard is hiring a Senior Software Engineer to take a significant role on the services and tooling that build and update the software that makes up Chainguard OS. This role sits within the GuardedOS team — the foundation layer on which every Chainguard product depends, and will primarily focus on Elastic Build, our Kubernetes-based package build pipeline. This is a high-ownership, high-variety engineering role. You will design, implement, operate, and improve the systems that keep Chainguard OS Packages up to date. You'll be the person who turns ambiguity into an action plan and executes without breaking things — fast, with a clear eye on long-term maintainability. What you’ll do: Operate and develop the Elastic Build service, our Kubernetes + GitHub + Cloud Run pipeline that converts package specifications into real downloadable artifacts, improving reliability, performance, resource usage, and multi-architecture support. Maintain and improve Melange, our package build tool, with a focus on usability, testing, patch management, and observability. Melange is largely feature-complete; the work here is hardening and instrumentation, not feature addition. Design and build automation for rebuild and review workflows — keeping a human in the approval chain while removing every step that can be automated. Support shared library transitions
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