Principal Software Engineer AI Agent Platform (Czech Republic)

The Red Hat Developer Tools organization is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join the Kaiden team. Kaiden is an open-source platform for running AI coding agents Claude Code Goose Cursor OpenCode in governed isolated sandboxes. Every agent session runs inside its own container (via Podman) or microVM (via libkrun) while platform engineers control which models tools kills secrets and MCP servers are permitted through workspace-level governance.

Kaiden is built by the team behind Podman Desktop with over 4 million downloads. The project is an Electron-based TypeScript application with a Svelte UI structured as a pnpm monorepo with a plugin architecture. Extensions integrate AI model providers (Anthropic Claude Google Gemini Mistral OpenAI-compatible endpoints OpenShift AI Ollama RamaLama) Skills providers MCP server registries and RAG tooling. The codebase also spans other languages (Go Rust) for container runtime and sandboxing infrastructure and integrates with Kubernetes for remote agent execution.

The project is Apache-2.0 licensed and developed in the open at The team works as a distributed hybrid group spanning multiple time zones. We build in the open contribute upstream and welcome community participation.

What You Will Do

• Implement sandbox isolation backends.** Design and evolve the dual-backend execution model (Podman containers and libkrun microVMs) that isolates each AI agent session ensuring security boundaries fast startup times and resource governance. Contributing to the upstream backend solution to add features required by users is also required.
• Lead the workspace governance system.** Define and build the configuration and policy layer that lets platform engineers control which models MCP servers skills secrets and context sources are permitted per workspace enforcing organizational AI policies at the platform level.
• Extend the plugin and extension architecture.** Evolve the plugin system and TypeScript extension API to support new AI provider integrations MCP server registries maintaining backward compatibility as the surface area grows.
• Technical leadership and mentorship across the team.** As a Principal Software Engineer you will influence and mentor engineers accross the team with collaboration with the team technical leader.
• Integrate AI-assisted development into team workflows.** Champion and refine the practice of AI-assisted coding (vibe coding) where developers describe intent and AI produces code. Establish patterns for prompt engineering code review of AI-generated output and productive human-AI collaboration within the team.
• Contribute to upstream open-source communities.** Participate in and drive contributions to upstream projects that Kaiden depends on including Podman libkrun the MCP specification devcontainers and related container and AI tooling ecosystems.
• Mentor engineers and foster technical excellence.** Coach distributed team members through code reviews design discussions and pairing sessions. Raise the bar on testing CI/CD practices and security standards across the project.

What You Will Bring

• 7 years of software engineering experience with demonstrated technical leadership on complex multi-component systems.
• Strong proficiency in TypeScript and experience building Electron or desktop applications; familiarity with Svelte or other modern frontend frameworks.
• Working knowledge of Go and experience with container runtimes OCI specifications or virtualization technologies (Podman Docker libkrun or similar).
• Deep understanding of container orchestration (Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift) including deploying and managing workloads writing controllers or operators and working with cluster APIs.
• Experience designing and building plugin or extension architectures dependency injection systems or SDK/API surfaces consumed by third-party developers.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in distributed hybrid teams across multiple time zones communicating asynchronously through written design documents pull request reviews and issue discussions.
• Practical experience using AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code GitHub Copilot Cursor or similar) to accelerate coding testing and documentation and the judgment to review and validate AI-generated output critically.

Preferred Qualifications

• Track record of contributing to or maintaining open-source projects particularly in the container Kubernetes or AI tooling ecosystems.
• Experience with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) AI agent frameworks (LangChain CrewAI) or building integrations for LLM-based tooling.
• Familiarity with microVM technologies (libkrun Firecracker Cloud Hypervisor) and hardware-level isolation for untrusted workloads.
• Experience with devcontainer specifications workspace configuration standards or developer environment provisioning at scale.
• Background in security engineering secrets management or building governance and policy enforcement systems for developer platforms.
• Experience with RAG pipelines vector databases (Milvus) or document processing frameworks (Docling) in production contexts.

About Red Hat

Red Hat is the worlds leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux cloud container and Kubernetes technologies. Spread across 40 countries our associates work flexibly across work environments from in-office to office-flex to fully remote depending on the requirements of their role. Red Hatters are encouraged to bring their best ideas no matter their title or tenure. Were a leader in open source because of our open and inclusive environment. We hire creative passionate people ready to contribute their ideas help solve complex problems and make an impact.

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