Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Pantheon is a company that powers over 300,000 websites globally, providing a WebOps platform for developers and marketers. They are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the development of a new real-time collaborative web content platform, focusing on both backend and frontend systems while collaborating closely with product and design teams.
Responsibilities
- Design and own the architecture of a real-time content platform — including data models, sync protocols, API surface, and client-side state management
- Drive technical decisions that balance developer ergonomics, operational simplicity, and long-term scalability across a cloud-native, multi-tenant environment
- Define engineering standards for the team: API design conventions, testing strategy, performance budgets, and observability practices
- Evaluate and select third-party services, libraries, and infrastructure components — with a clear framework for build vs. buy tradeoffs
- Build backend services that power collaborative editing, conflict resolution, and content delivery — operating reliably at scale across a distributed cloud infrastructure
- Build frontend systems that enable visual, real-time editing experiences — including page builders and publishing workflows
- Own the integration layer between the editing experience and the underlying platform: APIs, webhooks, and the developer-facing extension model
- Contribute meaningfully to UX architecture — not just implementation — by collaborating with design on interaction models for novel, stateful editing flows
- Serve as a technical partner to product and design — translating ambiguous problem spaces into concrete technical strategies and phased delivery plans
- Mentor and elevate engineers on the team through code review, pairing, architecture feedback, and clear documentation of technical decisions
- Engage with customers and partners to pressure-test architectural assumptions and ensure the platform addresses real-world integration patterns
Skills
- 10+ years of overall software engineering experience, with a strong track record of ownership across the full product lifecycle
- Genuine full-stack capability — you have shipped production systems on both the backend (APIs, data services, cloud infrastructure) and frontend (interactive UIs, component systems, browser performance)
- Experience with real-time or collaborative systems — whether content editing, multiplayer applications, event-driven architectures, or live data synchronization
- Cloud-native fluency: you are comfortable designing and operating services in GCP, AWS, Cloudflare, or Azure, with experience in containerization and modern deployment pipelines
- API design expertise: you have strong opinions about REST, GraphQL, and event-driven interfaces — and know when to apply each
- Frontend architecture chops: you understand component modeling, state management, rendering performance, and the browser platform at a level that goes well beyond framework familiarity
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
- Owners mindset: you are energized by ambiguity, take initiative without being asked, and feel personal ownership over outcomes — not just outputs
- Clear communicator: you can translate complex technical tradeoffs for product partners, write crisp design docs, and give feedback that makes engineers better
- Systems thinker: you see how architectural decisions today create optionality or debt tomorrow, and you make those tradeoffs consciously
- Builder's patience: zero-to-one work is non-linear. You understand that the path to a great product involves iteration, dead ends, and genuine collaboration — and you thrive in that environment
- Experience with visual or low-code editing interfaces (page builders, WYSIWYG editors, drag-and-drop component systems)
- Familiarity with CMS architectures — headless, hybrid, or traditional — and their tradeoffs in real-world deployments
- Experience building developer-facing platforms or extension systems (SDKs, plugin APIs, CLI tooling)
- Contributions to open-source projects in the web platform or developer tooling ecosystem
Benefits
- Industry competitive compensation and equity plan
- Flexible time off, sick days, and 13 paid holidays
- Comprehensive medical insurance including Health, Dental and Vision
- Paid parental leave (plus fertility, adoption and other family planning benefits)
- In-office workspace (San Francisco & Chicago)
- Monthly allowance for wellness, reading and access to LinkedIn Learning for continued development
- Events and activities both team-based and company wide that inspire, educate and cultivate
Company Overview
Pantheon is a website operations platform that provides custom application services. It was founded in 2010, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA, with a workforce of 501-1000 employees. Its website is https://pantheon.io.