Company details

HEADCOUNT

500-999

ORG TYPE

Startup

SECTOR

Technology & Digital

WEBSITE

http://www.chainguard.dev/

About the company

Chainguard sells “trusted open source” building blocks for modern software stacks, including hardened container images, language libraries, and virtual machine images. The company focuses on reducing software supply chain risk by building from source and continuously updating artifacts as vulnerabilities emerge. Chainguard was founded in 2021 by maintainers from major cloud-native security and infrastructure projects such as Kubernetes, Sigstore, and Distroless. Public customer references in hiring materials include Snowflake, Canva, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Locations and presence

Chainguard hires as remote-first across the United States and multiple international regions (including EMEA and APAC), with most roles listed as remote on the main job board. Public profiles list headquarters in Kirkland, Washington, while the company has also spoken publicly about operating with no traditional physical offices.

Palpable Score

64.6

/ 100

Chainguard is accessible to early-career candidates mainly through business development and internship intake, rather than broad junior hiring across functions. Pay and benefits are unusually clear for several roles, but early-career outcomes like promotion timelines and retention are not reported in a way that can be checked from public sources.

Pillar 1: Early-career access

Score

11.5

/ 20

The company lists Business Development Representative roles with a 1–3 years experience requirement, which is a realistic early-career entry point into GTM.
Chainguard keeps a standing “General Internship Application” open, which creates a visible route in even when specific intern roles are not posted.
The company’s engineering hiring on the main board is heavily weighted toward senior and staff roles, which limits entry-level access for early-career builders.

Pillar 2: Hiring fairness and transparency

Score

12.8

/ 20

The company’s Greenhouse postings spell out responsibilities, requirements, location type (remote), and practical constraints such as sponsorship availability.
Chainguard includes compensation detail in some postings (for example a defined OTE for BDR), but compensation is not consistently presented across every role and region.
The company has mixed public interview feedback, including both “kept informed throughout” experiences and complaints about time-consuming processes where hiring decisions may have already been made.

Pillar 3: Learning and support

Score

14.0

/ 20

The company describes internship support in concrete terms, including mentorship, meaningful projects with business impact, and access to training and professional development.
Chainguard has published a manager development program (“How We Lead”) with specific mechanisms like structured activities, feedback routines, and a focus on effective one-on-ones.
The company does not consistently describe onboarding plans or coaching rhythms inside early-career job descriptions beyond internships, which makes day-to-day support harder to verify.

Pillar 4: Pay fairness and stability

Score

15.8

/ 20

The company publishes real pay numbers in multiple places, including a stated $100,000 OTE for Commercial BDR and a base salary range for Technical Support Engineer roles.
Chainguard lists unusually strong stability benefits for a startup stage, including fully covered health premiums for employees and dependents, paid parental leave, remote-work stipends, and a detailed equity approach (including a long exercise window).
The company still leaves pay unclear for some roles and markets, so a candidate cannot assume the same transparency everywhere on the job board.

Pillar 5: Early-career outcomes

Score

10.5

/ 20

The company has strong general workplace sentiment signals on Glassdoor, including a high “recommend to a friend” share, but that is not broken down by early-career cohort outcomes.
Chainguard has sales-org outcome signals on RepVue such as quota attainment reporting, which is useful for early-career GTM candidates evaluating whether they can succeed in-role.
The company does not publish early-career progression metrics like internship conversion rates, time-to-promotion for BDR to AE, or 12–24 month retention for junior cohorts, which caps this pillar.