Senior Software Engineer – Container Images, Security

Senior Software Engineer — Container Images & Security
Citizenship Requirement: U.S. citizenship is required for this position due to work supporting federal government customers.

Location:

Remote
Team:
Engineering / Curated Images

Employment Type:

Full-Time

Rapid Fort is looking for a hands-on Senior Software Engineer to join our Curated Images team and help build, secure, and maintain production-ready container images at scale.
This role combines deep Linux engineering, vulnerability remediation, and software automation. You will own the container image lifecycle—from building minimal, reproducible images to analyzing and remediating CVEs, validating runtime compatibility, and automating ongoing maintenance and publishing.
You will work closely with engineering, infrastructure, and security teams to deliver secure, reliable images across Linux distributions and application stacks, including Python, Go, and Java. Success requires the ability to investigate package and dependency issues, implement fixes, and build automation that makes those fixes repeatable.

Design, build, and maintain minimal, hardened container images across Linux distributions and application runtimes.
Own end-to-end CVE remediation across OS packages, libraries, runtimes, and dependencies, including analysis, patching, rebuilding, and validation.
Troubleshoot complex package compatibility, dependency, build, and runtime issues while preserving application functionality.
Reduce image attack surface and size by removing unnecessary packages, binaries, and dependencies.
Build and improve automated pipelines for image builds, vulnerability scanning, remediation, testing, and publishing.
Develop tooling to manage image versioning, dependency updates, metadata, and release traceability.
Generate, validate, and maintain SBOMs to support software supply chain visibility and compliance.
Validate image functionality, reproducibility, and compatibility with Kubernetes and other containerized environments.
Collaborate with platform, infrastructure, and security teams to define image hardening standards and integrate curated images into development and deployment workflows.
Maintain clear documentation that helps developers adopt and use curated images.
Continuously improve remediation speed, image quality, build reliability, and operational efficiency.

5+ years of relevant experience in software engineering, Linux systems engineering, platform engineering, Dev Sec Ops , or SRE.
Deep understanding of Linux systems, with hands‑on experience across distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, or RHEL.
Strong experience building and optimizing Docker images, including multi-stage builds, image layering, and container file system structures.
Proven experience investigating and remediating CVEs in Linux packages and container images, including patching, rebuilding, and validating fixes.
Strong working knowledge of Linux package management and dependency resolution using tools such as apt, apk, yum/dnf, or rpm.
Strong programming or scripting skills in Python, Go, or Bash, with experience building maintainable automation and internal tooling.
Experience developing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using Git Hub Actions, Git Lab CI, Jenkins, or similar tools.
Hands‑on experience with vulnerability scanners such as Trivy, Grype, or Clair, along with SBOM generation.
Solid understanding of Kubernetes concepts, container life cycles, and image deployment requirements.
Ability to independently troubleshoot complex technical issues and collaborate effectively across engineering teams.

Experience building minimal or distroless images and maintaining a large catalog of container images.
Experience building Linux…