Director, Partner Solution Engineer

Docker is hiring a Director of Partner Solution Engineering to lead and scale its Partner Solution Engineering organization. The role drives partner enablement, joint go-to-market execution, technical strategy, and collaboration across Partner Sales, Product, Engineering, and Technical Alliances.

Responsibilities:

• Lead, develop, and inspire a team of Partner Solution Engineers, ensuring professional growth and high performance across multiple partner segments (ISVs, CSPs, SIs, VARs)
• Build and scale the Partner SE organization to support Docker's expanding partner ecosystem and geographic coverage
• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning focused on partner success and technical excellence
• Coach, mentor, and empower your team to engage effectively with diverse partner organizations and communicate complex technical concepts clearly
• Establish repeatable processes and programs for partner technical enablement, including scalable learning paths, certifications, technical deep-dives, and integration workshops
• Design and deliver both 1:1 strategic enablement for key partners and 1-to-many programs that drive adoption across the broader partner ecosystem
• Create technical content, integration guides, architectural diagrams, reference architectures, and enablement videos tailored for partners
• Develop partner-specific technical sales plays, solution validation frameworks, and proof-of-value methodologies that highlight Docker's differentiated value
• Partner with the Partner Sales organization to drive joint account planning, co-selling opportunities, and "sell-with" and "sell-through" motions
• Guide partners through solution design, technical validation, and evaluation processes to achieve joint customer success and sales goals
• Support product positioning and technical validation during joint sales engagements, ensuring clarity on what's GA and ready for delivery
• Define and track metrics for partner technical readiness, engagement quality, and revenue impact
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to share Voice of the Partner, influencing roadmap priorities and co-building initiatives
• Guide beta/EAP program participation with strategic partners, gathering feedback on new features and integration requirements
• Work closely with the Technical Alliances team on roadmap alignment, technical integrations with CSPs and ISVs, and partner-driven feature requests
• Champion regional partner technical needs and priorities in internal planning discussions (FedGov, EMEA, APAC)
• Collaborate with Field SEs to ensure alignment with market-specific requirements, share learnings, and avoid duplication of effort
• Partner with Marketing to support partner events, conferences, webinars, and demand generation programs
• Work with Sales leadership to define partner success metrics, performance standards, and technical excellence measures
• Represent Docker at partner events and conferences as a technical expert and evangelist
• Create an environment of continuous improvement focused on partner outcomes, operational excellence, and scalable processes
• Develop internal enablement programs that enhance partner SE capabilities and share best practices across teams
• Establish tools, systems, and workflows that enable efficient partner engagement and measurement
• Build strong feedback loops to iterate on enablement strategies based on data-driven insights and partner performance

Requirements:

• 8+ years of experience leading technical partner engineering, partner solutions, or pre-sales teams for distributed systems, developer platforms, or cloud infrastructure companies
• Proven success in guiding teams that support channel partnerships, strategic alliances, and joint go-to-market initiatives
• Minimum of 5 years in management, including hiring, mentoring, and scaling high-performing partner-facing technical teams
• Deep understanding of partner ecosystems including ISVs, CSPs (AWS, Azure, GCP), Systems Integrators, and VARs
• Strong experience in software supply chain security, security governance, DevOps, DevSecOps, or developer productivity technologies
• Deep technical understanding of containerization, cloud-native architectures, CI/CD pipelines, and developer tools
• Demonstrated ability to build scalable partner enablement programs (technical learning paths, certifications, workshops)
• Excellent communication and executive presentation skills, with the ability to build trust across technical and business audiences at both partner and customer organizations
• Strong strategic thinking with proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive complex initiatives
• Docker does not offer visa sponsorship for this role
• Operational experience with Docker, Kubernetes, or similar container-based platforms
• Experience with application security principles and securing the software supply chain, including SBOMs, image scanning, and secure delivery pipelines
• Background in software development, scripting, or infrastructure-as-code
• Experience enabling developer productivity through coding assistants, AI integrations, or AI agent development
• Familiarity with partner operations tools including Salesforce and enablement platforms like MindTickle
• Experience working in both direct and channel sales models, understanding the nuances of partner-led vs. partner-assisted sales
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)