Description
Squarespace is looking for a Backend Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical direction of its Communications Platform team.
The Communications Platform is a critical engine powering customer engagement across Squarespace , providing internal teams with a scalable, reliable, and secure infrastructure for delivering communications via email, push notifications, and in-product messaging.
The team owns multiple interconnected production platforms that collectively send over 1.75+ million notifications per day, strategic initiatives including platform modernization, In-Product Placements, and multi-channel communication capabilities.
In this role, you'll serve as the senior technical voice for the team , driving architecture, shaping roadmap execution, and elevating the engineering quality of a small but high-impact team. This is a hands-on role with real technical depth, paired with broad cross-functional influence.
This is a hybrid role based in the NYC office (3 days per week), reporting to the Engineering Manager of Communications Platform.
Responsibilities
- Drive the architecture, design, and implementation of the Communications Platform's platforms , including Email Delivery, In-Product Notifications, and Push Notifications.
- Define and own the technical strategy for platform modernization, reliability hardening, and engineering standards across backend services.
- Provide hands-on technical leadership and mentorship to a team of backend and frontend engineers, helping them grow in system design, decision-making, and ownership.
- Write high-quality Java code and stay close to execution , leading design reviews, code reviews, and architectural decisions that raise the bar across the codebase.
- Proactively identify and address systemic risks in performance, reliability, security, and operability before they become incidents.
- Serve as a key technical partner on cross-team and company-wide architecture initiatives.
- Balance short-term delivery with long-term platform health, communicating tradeoffs clearly to stakeholders and leadership.
Requirements
- 10+ years of backend engineering experience, with significant time building and operating large-scale, customer-facing systems.
- Deep expertise in Java and backend service development, including APIs, async processing, messaging systems (e.g., Kafka), and data stores (e.g., MongoDB, CockroachDB).
- Strong experience with distributed systems in production , including reliability, scaling, failure modes, and observability.
- A proven track record of technical leadership at the Staff or Senior-plus level, influencing architecture across multiple teams or services.
- Experience evolving existing systems , modernizing legacy platforms, simplifying complexity, and strengthening reliability without unnecessary rewrites.
- Experience operating within platform engineering contexts, where your customers are internal or external product teams and the quality of your APIs and abstractions directly shapes their velocity.
- A strong understanding of multi-channel communication infrastructure (email delivery, push, in-product notifications) is a meaningful plus.
- The ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical partners.
- A mindset oriented toward mentorship, collaboration, and inclusive technical leadership.
Technologies You'll Work With
- Java, Spring, Kafka, MongoDB, CockroachDB, Kubernetes, GCP.
- The team actively uses Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot to accelerate development and code review.
Benefits & Perks
- A choice between medical plans with an option for 100% covered premiums
- Fertility and adoption benefits
- Access to supplemental insurance plans for additional coverage
- Headspace mindfulness app subscription
- Global Employee Assistance Program
- Retirement benefits with employer match
- Flexible paid time off
- 12 weeks paid parental leave and family care leave
- Pretax commuter benefit
- Education reimbursement
- Employee donation match to community organizations
- 7 Global Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
- Dog-friendly workplace
- Free lunch and snacks
- Private rooftop
- Hack week twice per year