Principal Backend Engineer, Hub (US East Coast)

We’re looking for a Principal Backend Engineer with extensive experience in distributed systems, large-scale backend architecture, and high-volume storage systems. You will own systems end-to-end—from schema design and API architecture to deployment, observability, and operational excellence.

The work is highly dynamic, and you will operate in a fast-paced environment where we continuously evolve the platform to support enormous growth in traffic, data, and global usage. You’ll collaborate across engineering, SRE, Product, and Design while acting as a technical leader who simplifies complexity, elevates engineering quality, and improves a globally critical developer platform.

If you’re passionate about building and operating massive-scale distributed systems with huge data and throughput demands, this role is for you.

- Architect, build, and operate high-scale distributed systems powering Docker Hub’s registry platform—spanning artifact storage, metadata services, indexing workflows, and performance-critical APIs.

- Lead the design and implementation of backend services with a strong emphasis on scalability, correctness, resilience, and performance.

- Drive major initiatives around multi-region replication, caching strategies, request-path optimization, and core registry reliability.

- Design, optimize, operate the data and storage layers - for both Relational and NoSql as well as object storage and related technologies.

- Develop schemas and data models to support high-throughput, large-volume workloads.

- Own systems end-to-end—from storage-layer behavior to API design, deployment workflows, and production monitoring.

- Improve the performance and reliability of one of the world’s largest repositories of container images.

- Develop and enhance observability through metrics, traces, alerting, and dashboards.

- Lead improvements to deployment and operational tooling (e.g., Argo CD, GitHub Actions).

- Participate in on-call rotations as part of supporting critical production services.

- Mentor engineers and lead design and architecture reviews.

- Partner with Product, Design, SRE, and Platform teams to deliver high-impact projects.

- Engage with open-source communities, cloud-native partners, and the broader ecosystem.

- This role may require participation in an on-call rotation to provide support outside of standard business hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays, as needed.

- 10+ years backend engineering experience with deep expertise in distributed systems and large-scale backend architectures.

- Strong production experience with Golang, including designing and operating large Go-based services in cloud environments.

- Strong production experience with Kubernetes, including operating services at scale.

- Experience designing and running high-scale storage systems (PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, or equivalent) in production.

- Experience building and operating cloud-based services (AWS preferred).

- Experience with event-driven or streaming systems, such as Kafka, SNS/SQS, or equivalent.

- Strong foundation in software engineering best practices: design documentation, testing strategies, CI/CD, code review, observability.

- Comfortable functioning autonomously in a fully distributed, remote-first team and working effectively in a fast-paced environment.

- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

- Experience with OCI registries, artifact stores, or large-scale content distribution systems.

- Familiarity with search/indexing systems or metadata-rich architectures.

- An engineer with deep experience in distributed systems and large-scale storage

- Someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment and consistently optimizes for reliability, automation, and performance.

- A technical leader who takes ownership of complex systems and drives long-term architectural direction.

- An engineer energised by the challenges of operating a global developer platform at massive scale.