At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the design and scaling of Athena, a cutting-edge vulnerability management system.
- Company: Chainguard, a leader in securing the open source supply chain.
- Benefits: Equity options, unlimited PTO, remote work, and full health coverage.
- Other info: Join a dynamic team focused on engineering excellence and career growth.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on enterprise security while working with innovative technologies.
- Qualifications: Experience in building distributed systems and handling unstructured data.
The predicted salary is between 80000 - 100000 £ per year.
About the Role
Chainguard secures the open source supply chain, the infrastructure underneath the majority of software running in production today. This team is building Athena, the system that makes that possible at enterprise scale. Athena is the nerve center of our mission: we own the clearing house that takes in vulnerability data from enterprise customers, validates and deduplicates it, and routes it to remediation.
Responsibilities
- This is a principal‑level, advisory role for an engineer who has built production‑grade distributed systems before, is accountable for strategy and scale, deeply opinionated about data quality, and wants to operate at the intersection of engineering excellence and real‑world customer impact.
- Set the technical direction for the Athena clearing house by making the hard architectural calls on data validation pipelines, customer entitlement systems, workflow orchestration, upstream reconciliation, OSV publication, and coalition interfaces.
- Scale the team and the product area.
- Define and drive the transition from rapid prototyping to a sustainable, production‑grade product stack including observability, incident handling, and operational rigor.
- Partner with staff engineers to establish domain ownership and technical standards across the team.
- Lead the design of systems that process unstructured vulnerability reports from enterprise customers, deduplicate findings, and surface clean signals to the libraries remediation team.
- Identify and retire technical debt introduced during the team’s high‑velocity prototyping phase.
- Serve as a thought partner on build‑vs‑buy decisions, capacity planning, and long‑term architectural bets.
- Contribute to a hiring bar that brings in engineers who can sustain serious output without burning out.
Qualifications
- You’ve built systems that handle multiple customer types with different entitlements, access levels, and interaction patterns.
- Prior background in security‑adjacent domains (supply chain, vulnerability management, cloud security).
- Experience transitioning teams from fast‑moving prototypes to maintainable systems, monitoring, alerting, SLOs, and on‑call.
- Ability to work with messy, unstructured data, validating, deduplicating, and extracting signal from real‑world enterprise inputs.
- Deep fluency in Go and experience with GCP and Terraform is a must; polyglot engineers who can pick up new stacks quickly are welcome.
- Opinions about cost‑efficient AI usage and resource allocation are a plus.
- A track record of setting technical direction for complex, production‑facing distributed systems raising the entire team’s ceiling.
- Comfort operating across the full backend stack workflows, data pipelines, APIs with minimal hand‑holding.
Benefits
- Equity/stock options
- Unlimited PTO
- Remote work with flexible coworking and team meetup opportunities
- Home office and internet stipend
- 100% health/dental/vision insurance coverage for you and your family
Principal Software Engineer (Athena) in London employer: Chainguard
At Chainguard, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer that champions innovation and employee well-being. As a Principal Software Engineer working on Athena, you'll be part of a dynamic team dedicated to securing the open source supply chain, with access to unlimited PTO, equity options, and comprehensive health benefits. Our remote work culture fosters flexibility and collaboration, ensuring you can thrive both personally and professionally while making a significant impact in the tech industry.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Principal Software Engineer (Athena) in London
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Chainguard or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Chainguard.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Chainguard.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Chainguard that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Principal Software Engineer (Athena) in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Chainguard.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Chainguard and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Chainguard
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Chainguard uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
