--- title: 'Senior Software Engineer — Container Images & Security at RapidFort, Inc.' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-container-images-security-rapidfort-inc-united-states-w4xsf48a3azj' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-06' --- # Senior Software Engineer — Container Images & Security at RapidFort, Inc. - **Company:** RapidFort, Inc. - **Location:** United States - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-10-28 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-06 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/rapidfortinc/jobs/4471937009 ## Job description 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 ## About the Role RapidFort 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. ## What You’ll Do - 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. ## What You Bring - 5+ years of relevant experience in software engineering, Linux systems engineering, platform engineering, DevSecOps, 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 filesystem 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 GitHub Actions, GitLab 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 lifecycles, and image deployment requirements. - Ability to independently troubleshoot complex technical issues and collaborate effectively across engineering teams. ## Nice to Have - Experience building minimal or distroless images and maintaining a large catalog of container images. - Experience building Linux packages from source or backporting security fixes. - Familiarity with SBOM formats and tools such as SPDX, CycloneDX, and Syft. - Experience with image signing, provenance, and verification using Cosign or Sigstore. - Knowledge of software supply chain security frameworks such as SLSA. - Familiarity with container registries such as Docker Hub, Harbor, or Amazon ECR. - Experience with Helm, Kustomize, GitOps, or infrastructure-as-code workflows. - Experience in a startup environment or regulated industry. What Success Looks Like - Reliable delivery of production-ready, hardened images with near-zero exploitable CVEs. - Scalable automation for image builds, remediation, validation, and publishing. - Faster remediation turnaround while maintaining runtime compatibility and image quality. - Measurable reductions in image size and attack surface. - Repeatable standards for secure, reproducible container image delivery. ## Compensation & Benefits - Base salary: $130,000–$200,000, depending on experience and technical depth. - Equity participation. - Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage. - Remote-first work environment. - Opportunity to solve complex Linux, container, and software supply chain security challenges. - Career growth within a rapidly scaling cybersecurity company. ## About RapidFort, Inc. ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: RapidFort provides a software supply chain security platform that automatically hardens container images, eliminates up to 99.9% of CVEs, and provides continuous compliance validation. - **Entity Type**: Private – Series A (Total raised: $50.5M; last round: $42M, ~5 months ago) - **Headquarters**: Sunnyvale, California, USA (440 North Wolfe Road) - **Founded**: 2020 - **Founders**: Not publicly available (CEO & Founder and CTO & Founder are listed but names not disclosed in available sources) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Cybersecurity – Software Supply Chain Security & Container Security - **Target customers**: B2B – Enterprise and Federal organizations (regulated environments like FedRAMP, CMMC, SOC 2, NIS2, CRA) - **Mission statement**: “Eliminate vulnerabilities continuously – without code changes, OS changes or pipeline modifications.” ## Products & Services - **RapidFort Container Security Platform**: A SaaS platform that analyzes container runtime behavior to identify unused components, automatically removes them, and rebuilds hardened container images every 24 hours. Reduces attack surface by 60–90% and eliminates up to 99.9% of CVEs without altering application code. - **Curated Near-Zero CVE Images**: A library of 35,000+ production-ready container images built on trusted LTS distributions (Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian, Alpine) with minimal CVE count, continuously patched and hardened. - **Runtime Bill of Materials (RBOM)**: A tool that provides visibility into which software components are actually executed inside containers, enabling teams to prioritize real vulnerabilities over theoretical risks. - **Continuous Compliance Validation**: Automated evaluation of container images against STIG, CIS, FedRAMP, CMMC, and other security benchmarks, generating audit-ready reports across CI/CD, registries, and Kubernetes environments. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding raised – $50.5M (Series A of $42M closed ~5 months prior to this profile) - **Notable Investors / Partners**: Not publicly listed in available sources; 35,000+ curated images built on Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian, Alpine - **Growth Signals**: Active hiring across multiple remote roles (Engineering, Sales, Customer Support); claims 82 million vulnerabilities removed on platform; 5 patents filed; used in federal and regulated environments. ## Competitive Advantages - **Runtime‑aware reduction**: Instead of traditional static scanning, uses real production behavior to identify and remove unused software, shrinking attack surface up to 90% while preserving functionality. - **No code changes required**: CVE remediation happens automatically without altering application code, OS, or pipeline – a key differentiator for security teams. - **Near‑zero CVE base images**: A curated library of 35,000+ images reduces inherited vulnerabilities before deployment. - **Enterprise & Federal readiness**: Supports STIG, FIPS, FedRAMP, CMMC, SOC 2, CRA – meeting strict compliance requirements that many competitors cannot. - **Vendor lock‑in avoidance**: Built on true open source distributions (Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian, Alpine) – no proprietary OS lock-in. ## Strategic Focus - Expanding reach into regulated industries (federal, defense, finance) by continuously hardening images and certificates. - Automating compliance evidence generation to accelerate certifications (FedRAMP, CMMC). - Scaling the curated‑image library and RBOM capabilities to reduce vulnerability noise by 25% for enterprise customers. ## Why Work Here - **Culture & Impact**: Directly addressing one of the most pressing cybersecurity challenges – container and software supply chain security – with a platform that eliminates up to 99.9% of CVEs automatically. - **Work model**: Remote‑first (all open positions explicitly listed as remote). - **Engineering focus**: Strong emphasis on security, distributed systems, and build engineering – roles include Senior Software Engineer (Security & Distributed Systems), Staff Engineer (Team Lead), Linux Distribution Engineer, and SDET/QA Automation. - **Growth stage**: Series A with strong funding and active hiring across multiple functions; opportunity to shape products in a fast‑growing cybersecurity startup. ## Sources 1. [rapidfort.com](https://www.rapidfort.com/) 2. [rapidfort.com/about](https://www.rapidfort.com/company/about-us) 3. [rapidfort.com/careers](https://www.rapidfort.com/company/careers) 4. [job-boards.greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/rapidfortinc) 5. 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