Senior AI Software Engineer Visa Sponsorship Jobs in Washington
Washington is one of the most active states for senior AI software engineer visa sponsorship, anchored by Microsoft in Redmond, Amazon in Seattle, and a growing cluster of AI-focused companies across the Puget Sound region. Meta, Google, Apple, and dozens of AI startups also maintain significant engineering offices here, making Washington a primary destination for international candidates in this field.
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Get Access To All JobsAbout Docker
Docker has been one of the most loved brands in developer tooling, trusted by more than 20 million monthly users and over 20 billion container image pulls. From solo founders to the world's largest companies, developers rely on Docker to build, share, and run their applications across our suite of products including Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, and Docker Scout. We are a globally distributed, remote-first team building the tools that define how software gets built and delivered. As AI agents redefine software development, Docker is at the center of that shift, providing the sandboxed environments, verified images, and secure infrastructure that make autonomous workflows trustworthy by default.
Docker’s AI Tools & Security team is building the foundation for the next generation of secure, developer-friendly AI infrastructure. Our flagship product, the MCP Gateway, empowers developers to connect, observe, and secure AI agents and tools across the entire lifecycle—from prototype to production. We’re defining how developers safely harness the power of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) in real-world environments. We’re looking for a Principal Backend Engineer who thrives at the intersection of AI, security, and developer experience. You’ll lead the technical direction of the Gateway and related services, collaborating closely with Product, Design, and Security to deliver elegant frameworks and APIs that developers love to use. This is a high-velocity, high-ownership environment: you’ll ship fast, iterate constantly, and help shape the future of secure agent-based development.
Responsibilities
- Define the technical solution for a new product
- Help shape the product with peers in Product and Design
- Mentor other technical team members
- Be the technical point of contact for the team
- 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.
Qualifications
Required:
- 10+ years of backend engineering experience, including extensive work on production-grade, distributed systems at scale.
- Technical leadership across multiple teams or domains, with a proven ability to drive architectural vision, set technical direction, and influence long-term product strategy.
- Exceptional product and platform mindset—you think beyond implementation details to how technology shapes developer and business outcomes.
- Expertise in designing and evolving large-scale, cloud-native systems, with deep knowledge of distributed computing, service-oriented architecture, and performance optimization.
- Demonstrated experience building secure, resilient, and high-throughput backend services, with a strong grasp of reliability engineering principles (SLOs, observability, incident response).
- Fluency in Go (preferred) or another modern systems language (Rust, Java, C++, etc.), with the ability to lead technical design reviews and mentor others in language-specific best practices.
- Strong grasp of software engineering fundamentals—CI/CD, testing strategy, source control, and deployment automation—applied in complex, multi-service environments.
- Proven track record of technical mentorship and cross-functional collaboration, enabling teams to deliver high-impact, high-quality software efficiently.
- Deep experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and infrastructure-as-code tooling.
- Ownership mentality with a bias for action and iterative delivery, balancing short-term impact with long-term architectural health.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Comfortable operating autonomously in distributed, remote-first teams, and leading through influence rather than authority.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Bonus
- Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, and microservices architecture
- Prior experience with OpenAI, Anthropic, or similar LLM APIs, and the MCP specification
What To Expect
First 30 days:
- Meet team members
- Build context about the problem space and prior art
- Provide feedback on current exploration and propose next steps in line with Product and Design
First 90 Days
- Work with Product and Design on defining the product
- Attend customer calls
- Meet people across the company
- Help grow the team by participating in hiring loops
One Year Outlook (First Year)
- Bring the product to market
Docker considers visa sponsorship on a case-by-case basis based on business needs.
Compensation & Equity
United States: $198K – $319K + equity
Posting Information
- Open vacancy: This posting is for an existing open role.
- AI in hiring: Docker may use AI-assisted tools during our recruiting process.
- Interview recordings: Candidates will be invited to opt in to interview recordings to support interviewer calibration and consistent evaluations. Recordings are optional and require explicit consent.
Perks & Benefits
- Remote-first by design – Work from your home, with offices in Seattle and Paris for connection and collaboration.
- Flexibility that fits your life – We trust you to manage your schedule while delivering great work.
- Time to recharge – Generous PTO, designated quarterly Whaleness Days, and a designated end-of-year Whaleness break.
- Home office support – Set up your workspace for comfort and success.
- Technology stipend – Equivalent to US$100 net per month to help support your work.
- Learning & development – Annual stipend for conferences, courses, certifications, and continued learning.
- Parental leave – 16 weeks of paid parental leave after six months of employment.
- Equity for all full-time employees – Share in Docker's long-term success as we continue to grow.
- Comprehensive benefits – Medical, retirement, and paid holidays vary by country.
- Docker swag – Because representing the whale never gets old.
Docker is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We believe diverse teams build better products, make better decisions, and better serve our global community.
About Docker
Docker has been one of the most loved brands in developer tooling, trusted by more than 20 million monthly users and over 20 billion container image pulls. From solo founders to the world's largest companies, developers rely on Docker to build, share, and run their applications across our suite of products including Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, and Docker Scout. We are a globally distributed, remote-first team building the tools that define how software gets built and delivered. As AI agents redefine software development, Docker is at the center of that shift, providing the sandboxed environments, verified images, and secure infrastructure that make autonomous workflows trustworthy by default.
Docker’s AI Tools & Security team is building the foundation for the next generation of secure, developer-friendly AI infrastructure. Our flagship product, the MCP Gateway, empowers developers to connect, observe, and secure AI agents and tools across the entire lifecycle—from prototype to production. We’re defining how developers safely harness the power of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) in real-world environments. We’re looking for a Principal Backend Engineer who thrives at the intersection of AI, security, and developer experience. You’ll lead the technical direction of the Gateway and related services, collaborating closely with Product, Design, and Security to deliver elegant frameworks and APIs that developers love to use. This is a high-velocity, high-ownership environment: you’ll ship fast, iterate constantly, and help shape the future of secure agent-based development.
Responsibilities
- Define the technical solution for a new product
- Help shape the product with peers in Product and Design
- Mentor other technical team members
- Be the technical point of contact for the team
- 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.
Qualifications
Required:
- 10+ years of backend engineering experience, including extensive work on production-grade, distributed systems at scale.
- Technical leadership across multiple teams or domains, with a proven ability to drive architectural vision, set technical direction, and influence long-term product strategy.
- Exceptional product and platform mindset—you think beyond implementation details to how technology shapes developer and business outcomes.
- Expertise in designing and evolving large-scale, cloud-native systems, with deep knowledge of distributed computing, service-oriented architecture, and performance optimization.
- Demonstrated experience building secure, resilient, and high-throughput backend services, with a strong grasp of reliability engineering principles (SLOs, observability, incident response).
- Fluency in Go (preferred) or another modern systems language (Rust, Java, C++, etc.), with the ability to lead technical design reviews and mentor others in language-specific best practices.
- Strong grasp of software engineering fundamentals—CI/CD, testing strategy, source control, and deployment automation—applied in complex, multi-service environments.
- Proven track record of technical mentorship and cross-functional collaboration, enabling teams to deliver high-impact, high-quality software efficiently.
- Deep experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and infrastructure-as-code tooling.
- Ownership mentality with a bias for action and iterative delivery, balancing short-term impact with long-term architectural health.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Comfortable operating autonomously in distributed, remote-first teams, and leading through influence rather than authority.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Bonus
- Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, and microservices architecture
- Prior experience with OpenAI, Anthropic, or similar LLM APIs, and the MCP specification
What To Expect
First 30 days:
- Meet team members
- Build context about the problem space and prior art
- Provide feedback on current exploration and propose next steps in line with Product and Design
First 90 Days
- Work with Product and Design on defining the product
- Attend customer calls
- Meet people across the company
- Help grow the team by participating in hiring loops
One Year Outlook (First Year)
- Bring the product to market
Docker considers visa sponsorship on a case-by-case basis based on business needs.
Compensation & Equity
United States: $198K – $319K + equity
Posting Information
- Open vacancy: This posting is for an existing open role.
- AI in hiring: Docker may use AI-assisted tools during our recruiting process.
- Interview recordings: Candidates will be invited to opt in to interview recordings to support interviewer calibration and consistent evaluations. Recordings are optional and require explicit consent.
Perks & Benefits
- Remote-first by design – Work from your home, with offices in Seattle and Paris for connection and collaboration.
- Flexibility that fits your life – We trust you to manage your schedule while delivering great work.
- Time to recharge – Generous PTO, designated quarterly Whaleness Days, and a designated end-of-year Whaleness break.
- Home office support – Set up your workspace for comfort and success.
- Technology stipend – Equivalent to US$100 net per month to help support your work.
- Learning & development – Annual stipend for conferences, courses, certifications, and continued learning.
- Parental leave – 16 weeks of paid parental leave after six months of employment.
- Equity for all full-time employees – Share in Docker's long-term success as we continue to grow.
- Comprehensive benefits – Medical, retirement, and paid holidays vary by country.
- Docker swag – Because representing the whale never gets old.
Docker is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We believe diverse teams build better products, make better decisions, and better serve our global community.
Senior AI Software Engineer Job Roles in Washington
See all 839+ Senior AI Software Engineer Jobs in Washington
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Search Senior AI Software Engineer Jobs in WashingtonSenior AI Software Engineer Jobs in Washington: Frequently Asked Questions
Which companies sponsor visas for senior AI software engineers in Washington?
Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple, Meta, and Salesforce are among the most active visa sponsors for senior AI software engineers in Washington. Beyond the major tech employers, companies like Nvidia, Adobe, Zillow, and a growing number of AI-focused startups in Seattle and Bellevue have consistent histories of sponsoring H-1B visa and other work visas for specialized engineering roles.
Which visa types are most common for senior AI software engineer roles in Washington?
The H-1B is the most common visa for senior AI software engineers in Washington, as the role typically qualifies as a specialty occupation requiring at least a bachelor's degree in computer science, machine learning, or a related field. Candidates with extraordinary recognition in AI research sometimes pursue the O-1A. Those transferring within a multinational company may be eligible for the L-1B for specialized knowledge workers.
Which cities in Washington have the most senior AI software engineer sponsorship jobs?
Seattle and Redmond account for the overwhelming majority of senior AI software engineer sponsorship jobs in Washington. Seattle hosts major Amazon and Google engineering offices alongside a dense AI startup ecosystem. Redmond is anchored by Microsoft's headquarters, which consistently ranks among the top H-1B sponsors nationally. Bellevue has also grown significantly, with companies like Expedia and several AI-focused firms establishing engineering presence there.
How to find senior ai software engineer visa sponsorship jobs in Washington?
Migrate Mate is built specifically for international candidates and filters senior AI software engineer roles in Washington by confirmed visa sponsorship, saving you from sifting through listings that won't support work authorization. You can browse current openings across Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue, and beyond, with roles sourced from employers who have active sponsorship histories for this specific job category in Washington.
Are there any Washington-specific considerations for senior AI software engineer sponsorship candidates?
Washington has no state income tax, which affects prevailing wage calculations and compensation structures compared to states like California. The University of Washington produces a significant pipeline of AI and machine learning talent, and many employers in the state are familiar with OPT and STEM OPT extensions as a bridge toward H-1B sponsorship. The concentration of large tech employers also means more cap-exempt H-1B sponsors, such as research affiliates and nonprofits, operate in the region.
What is the prevailing wage for sponsored senior ai software engineer jobs in Washington?
U.S. employers sponsoring a visa must pay at least the prevailing wage, which is what workers in the same role, area, and experience level typically earn. The Department of Labor sets this rate to make sure companies aren't hiring foreign workers simply because they'd accept lower pay than a U.S. worker. It varies by job title, location, and experience. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search page.