Staff Software Engineer, Fullstack

About the Role

We are looking for an engineer with strong CS fundamentals, great object-oriented design, relational data modeling, and a systems mindset. Someone who reaches for architecture, patterns, and platforms before reaching for syntax, and picks the right tool for the job. At the Staff level, you bring ideas to the table, set the technical bar, organize ambiguous problems into plans, and drive them to completion.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for Member Growth's systems. Own the architecture and its evolution across pods.
• Find the highest-leverage problems and opportunities in the funnel, platform, and ways of working, and put them on the roadmap with a proposal.
• Write proposals, tech designs, and RFCs with architecture diagrams, options, tradeoffs, and clear recommendations.
• Make system-level decisions on when to introduce eventing (Kafka, SQS), workflow orchestration (Temporal, Airflow, DAGs), caching, async pipelines, or new services.
• Design for horizontal scale and low, uniform latency under real Thrive traffic patterns.
• Decompose existing services into scalable components where appropriate and plan migration paths.
• Partner cross-functionally with Frontend Core, Backend Core, Data, and other product teams.
• Break fuzzy, multi-team problems into plans with clear owners and unblock others.
• Build consensus with engineers, Product, and leadership.
• Tie engineering decisions to outcomes, instrument systems, and defend changes with data.
• Apply test-driven development practices with a strong focus on quality, reliability, and observability.
• Define engineering best practices in design, code, and operations; mentor and grow engineers.
• Own SLAs for Member Growth surfaces and multiply output with AI tooling.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building and operating high-traffic, customer-facing systems, including technical leadership across multiple teams
• Strong CS fundamentals: object-oriented design, relational database design, and systems reasoning
• Fluency at the system and cloud level: eventing (Kafka, SNS, SQS), workflow orchestration (Temporal, Airflow, DAGs), distributed systems tradeoffs, caching, async pipelines, idempotency, backpressure
• Comfortable moving between layers and stacks (current stack includes PHP/Magento on backend, React/Next on frontend, hosted on AWS)
• Working knowledge of AWS (Lambda, S3, CloudWatch, SQS, etc.) and tradeoffs between relational, document, and wide-column stores
• Track record of shipping high-impact features in production at scale and setting technical direction
• Strong written and visual communicator (diagrams, design docs, RFCs)
• Experience influencing without authority and leveling up surrounding engineers
• Observability and monitoring experience (New Relic, Datadog, or similar) to maintain SLA, Apdex, and error rate
• Bonus: Experience in growth, e-commerce, subscription, or membership models (funnels, experimentation, attribution, recurring billing)