# Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Communications Platform)

**Company**: Squarespace
**Location**: New York City
**Work arrangement**: hybrid
**Experience**: staff
**Job type**: full-time
**Salary**: $185,500 - $299,000 USD
**Category**: Engineering
**Industry**: Technology

**Apply**: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/squarespace/jobs/8046349?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply
**Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_a5b00767-f60

## 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

## Skills

### Required
- Java
- Spring
- Kafka
- MongoDB
- CockroachDB
- Kubernetes
- GCP
- distributed systems
- backend service development

### Nice to have
- multi-channel communication infrastructure
- Claude Code
- Cursor
- GitHub Copilot

---

Source: [Apply at job-boards.greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/squarespace/jobs/8046349?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)