Principal Engineering Manager – Enterprise WordPress & Composable CMS

Job Title: Principal Engineering Manager – Enterprise WordPress & Composable CMS
Employment Type: Full-Time
Work Model: Remote
Location: USA / North America preferred
Experience: 10-12+ years

About the Role

We are seeking a Principal Engineering Manager to serve as the most senior engineering authority for our enterprise WordPress and composable CMS practice. This is a high-impact leadership role combining solution architecture, engineering excellence, AI-driven innovation, pre-sales leadership, and accountability for business outcomes.

You will shape how we build, hire, train, and scale engineering teams—while representing the organization as a trusted technical expert in high-stakes client conversations. WordPress is our core platform, but you will also guide our evolution into headless, composable, and adjacent publishing technologies such as Sanity.

What You Will Own

• Define and maintain the technical direction, architecture standards, quality bar, and engineering review processes across the practice.
• Lead solution architecture for complex, high-value enterprise WordPress, headless, and composable CMS engagements.
• Coach Engineering Managers and raise the performance bar across multiple teams, including teams you do not directly manage.
• Build repeatable systems for engineering hiring, onboarding, training, capability development, and performance management.
• Drive AI-augmented engineering: define adoption strategy, evaluate emerging tools, shape internal tooling, and embed AI responsibly into delivery workflows.
• Lead technical discovery, solution design, estimation, and proposal strategy for major client pursuits.
• Act as the subject-matter expert in client pitches, executive discussions, and technical advisory conversations.
• Co-own departmental outcomes including engineering quality, utilization, delivery efficiency, and profitability.
• Represent the organization externally through WordCamps, industry events, technical content, and community engagement.

Technical Expertise Required

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with proven leadership influence across multiple teams.
• Authoritative expertise in enterprise WordPress architecture: themes, plugins, multisite, custom integrations, headless implementations, and complex migrations.
• Strong command of performance, scalability, caching, database optimization, Core Web Vitals, security hardening, secure coding, testing, and reliability.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise hosting and delivery ecosystems such as Pantheon or WP Engine.
• Experience with CI/CD, containerization, modern development workflows, and AI-enabled engineering practices.
• Experience evaluating headless and composable platforms, including Sanity or similar CMS technologies.
• Strong client-facing communication, pre-sales, solution consulting, and executive-level presentation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to connect engineering decisions to business outcomes such as quality, utilization, and profitability.

Nice to Have

• Public technical presence through WordCamp speaking, conference talks, open-source contributions, blogging, or published technical content.
• Experience with large-scale CMS migrations from platforms such as AEM, Sitecore, or Drupal.
• Experience designing engineering org structures, leveling frameworks, and scalable review processes.
• A strong point of view on the future of AI in software engineering and responsible AI adoption across delivery teams.

What Success Looks Like

Within the first year, you will have strengthened engineering quality across teams, established reliable hiring and capability-development systems, earned trust in high-stakes client conversations, and helped improve the metrics that matter to the business.

Why Join Us

• Fully remote opportunity with North America preferred.
• Senior leadership mandate with real influence over engineering strategy and practice direction.
• Opportunity to lead enterprise WordPress, headless CMS, and AI-enabled engineering innovation.
• Work with global enterprise clients and complex digital publishing platforms.

We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

Pay: $8,000.00 - $10,000.00 per month

Application Question(s):

• Do you have 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading enterprise WordPress, headless, or composable CMS architecture across multiple teams or projects?
• Have you led engineering practice-level initiatives—such as architecture standards, hiring/training frameworks, quality processes, AI adoption, or coaching Engineering Managers—while also leading technical discovery or pre-sales for enterprise clients?
• Briefly describe the largest enterprise WordPress, headless, or composable CMS platform you have architected or led. Include the client/industry type, scale (traffic, number of sites, migration source if applicable), your specific role, key technical decisions, and measurable business impact.

Work Location: Remote