Staff Software Engineer - Collaborative Web Platform

Pantheon is a leading company in web content infrastructure, powering over 300,000 websites globally. They are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the development of a real-time, collaborative platform that transforms content management for modern web 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

Requirements:

• 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