diff --git a/tools/docker-compose-cluster.yml b/tools/docker-compose-cluster.yml
index c26382fdad..d9a9b3c1d9 100644
--- a/tools/docker-compose-cluster.yml
+++ b/tools/docker-compose-cluster.yml
@@ -109,6 +109,6 @@ services:
     user: ${CURRENT_UID}
     image: memcached:alpine
     container_name: tools_memcached_1
-    command: ["-s", "/var/run/memcached/memcached.sock", "-a", "0666"]
+    command: ["memcached", "-s", "/var/run/memcached/memcached.sock", "-a", "0666"]
     volumes:
       - "./memcached/:/var/run/memcached"
diff --git a/tools/docker-compose.yml b/tools/docker-compose.yml
index 61a2d9b9ef..f81307a858 100644
--- a/tools/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/tools/docker-compose.yml
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ services:
     user: ${CURRENT_UID}
     image: memcached:alpine
     container_name: tools_memcached_1
-    command: ["-s", "/var/run/memcached/memcached.sock", "-a", "0666"]
+    command: ["memcached", "-s", "/var/run/memcached/memcached.sock", "-a", "0666"]
     volumes:
       - "./memcached/:/var/run/memcached"
   redis:
diff --git a/tools/memcached/.dir_placeholder b/tools/memcached/.dir_placeholder
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..12ff59c525
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/memcached/.dir_placeholder
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+This dir must pre-exist and be owned by the user you are launching awx dev env as. If the dir does not exist before launching the awx dev environment then docker will create the dir and it will be owned by root. Since we start our awx dev environment with user: ${CURRENT_UID} the memcached container will be unable to create a socket file in a directory owned by root.