Staff Software Engineer (Collaborative Web Platform)

• This is a rare chance to be at the ground floor of something genuinely new. Pantheon is building the next generation of web content infrastructure: a real-time, collaborative platform that redefines how teams create, publish, and manage content on the modern web
• This is a zero-to-one role. The product is early, the architecture is being defined, and the decisions you make will shape how thousands of developers and content teams experience the web for years to come
• You will not be maintaining legacy systems or iterating on feature #1001. You will be inventing the foundational layer of a new product category: one that sits at the intersection of developer tooling, visual editing, and cloud-native content infrastructure
• If you’ve ever wanted to work on a problem that is technically hard, commercially meaningful, and genuinely unsolved, this is it
• As a Staff Engineer on this team, you will be a technical leader and hands-on builder in equal measure. You will work across the full stack — from the APIs and real-time synchronization services that power the platform’s backend, to the visual editing interfaces and component systems that content teams interact with every day
• You will partner closely with product and design to shape the architecture, make build-vs-buy decisions, define engineering standards, and accelerate a small, focused team toward meaningful milestones
• Platform Architecture & Technical Leadership:
• 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
• Full-Stack Product Development:
• 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
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Mentorship:
• 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

Benefits

• Health & Wellness: Taking care of you and your family is important to us. Our healthcare benefits program delivers choice and value so you can prioritize your health

• Remote & In-Office: We believe in a flexible employee experience, our San Francisco office is a center for collaboration and connection, but it’s not the only place this happens

• Flexible Time-Off: We encourage work/life balance. Take time off when you need it, and return ready to make magic on the internet when you’re ready and refreshed

• Monthly Book & Gym Allowance: One of the many ways we enable our team to take control of their development and wellness is to take advantage of our books and gym membership allowance

• Promoting Inclusivity: We strive to have a culture where Pantheors across the globe feel a high sense of belonging and engagement. We have several programs in place to help cultivate inclusion at Pantheon, including educational events, open forums, and training opportunities

• Giving Back: We believe in cultivating passion and giving back to the community we live and work in. Pantheon offers a Donation Matching program of $500 per employee and holds multiple team volunteer opportunities throughout the year

• Employee Resource Groups: Our Pantheon Resource Groups (PRGs) allow employees to connect, support each other, and spread awareness

• Professional Development: We support employee learning and development through company led-training, leadership forums, and full access to LinkedIn Learning’s catalogue of courses

• This role requires both breadth and depth. You are equally comfortable reasoning about distributed state management and crafting a delightful, low-latency editing experience in the browser

• You understand that great infrastructure and great product experience are not in tension — they are the same problem viewed from different angles

• 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)

• 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

• 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 real-time or collaborative systems — whether content editing, multiplayer applications, event-driven architectures, or live data synchronization

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience

• 10+ years of overall software engineering experience, with a strong track record of ownership across the full product lifecycle

• Frontend architecture chops: you understand component modeling, state management, rendering performance, and the browser platform at a level that goes well beyond framework familiarity

• 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

• 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