Lead Engineer

Who We Are

StackCommerce is the leading commerce content platform serving 1,000+ premium publishers, including Mashable, Entrepreneur, and the NY Post. As a TPG portfolio company, we operate a portfolio of commerce brands, including BrandCycle, Reviewed, and StackSocial.

The Opportunity

We're seeking a strategic technology leader to guide our distributed engineering organization through a critical transformation. You'll lead the evolution from fragmented systems to a unified platform architecture while building sustainable engineering practices across our portfolio.

The Role

You are a hands-on technology leader who will oversee engineering and technology across the StackCommerce commerce portfolio. While BrandCycle continues to operate with business and product autonomy, you will collaborate with the BrandCycle team on the overall technology strategy, ensuring alignment on shared services such as security, infrastructure, and data. You’ll inherit a distributed team across the US, Mexico, and Brazil, with immediate priorities to harden security, consolidate redundant systems, and establish disciplined engineering processes that enable centralized and semi-independent business units to scale effectively under a unified technology vision.

Location: 100% Remote (US-based required), Boston-based a plus

What You'll Do 

Platform & Architecture Leadership:

• Assess all platforms to inform strategy around consolidation
• Modernize the core technology platform (“Admin”)
• Optimize AWS infrastructure and reduce operational costs
• Build automation to replace manual processes

Team & Organization Development:

• Lead the distributed engineering organization across the US, Mexico, Brazil.
• Establish consistent engineering practices, processes, and standards across all brands.
• Create career development paths and improve team retention
• Balance contractor relationships while building core in-house capabilities
• Single voice between Engineering and business stakeholders

Business Partnership:

• Partner with each brand's business and product leaders to translate strategy into a technology roadmap that balances portfolio priorities with brand-level autonomy.
• Translate business requirements into a technical roadmap
• Provide Leadership with clear visibility into technology progress, risks, and ROI
• Drive consistent reporting and metrics across all brands, particularly around GMV, conversion, payout accuracy, and platform reliability

Operational Excellence:

• Optimize project management and sprint processes
• Establish security protocols and compliance standards
• Build documentation and knowledge management systems that preserve institutional knowledge and reduce dependency on individuals
• Establish shared DevOps, QA, and data engineering functions that all brands can leverage
• Manage vendor relationships and budgets holistically across all brands to maximize leverage and reduce redundancy

What You'll Bring

Required Experience:

• 5+ years leading distributed engineering teams
• Experience managing contractor-heavy organizations
• Demonstrated success transforming legacy PHP, WordPress, and Ruby systems into modular, API-driven architectures with modern data, caching, and deployment pipelines.
• Solid understanding of data engineering and analytics architectures, including data pipelines, ETL/ELT processes, and data modeling best practices. 
• Deep understanding of end-to-end e-commerce architecture—from front-end transactional flows to backend data, analytics, and compliance layers.
• Proven experience managing cybersecurity, data protection, and compliance initiatives (e.g., SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA), ensuring secure infrastructure and adherence to regulatory standards.

Technical Skills:

• Strong knowledge of React, TypeScript, and Next.js ecosystems
• Experience in headless CMS integrations and decoupled web architectures.
• Hands-on expertise in Ruby on Rails, WordPress, and PHP application development.
• Understanding of serverless architecture and data streaming services: AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, AWS SAM, Kinesis, Kafka.
• Familiarity with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong background in AWS infrastructure, automation, and cost optimization.
• Background in designing and maintaining resilient and fault-tolerant API and microservice ecosystems.

Leadership Qualities:

• Ability to establish credibility and influence
• Experience building an engineering culture in various environments
• Strong communication skills with technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Pragmatic approach balancing technical debt with business needs
• Ability to manage offshore teams across multiple time zones

Why StackCommerce Needs You

Immediate Impact Areas

• Establish a technology leadership voice in the company's strategy
• Address critical security vulnerabilities in admin systems
• Create stability in the engineering organization post-leadership transition
• Build comprehensive processes where gaps and informal practices exist today
• Transform reactive firefighting culture to proactive development

Growth Opportunity

• Shape technology strategy for a profitable, growing portfolio
• Develop the engineering team into a fully-structured organization
• Drive platform evolution to a modern tech stack
• Create a lasting impact on the company's trajectory

What Makes This Role Unique

• Greenfield opportunity to establish engineering excellence
• Direct impact on business outcomes with executive visibility
• Freedom to choose technology direction and architecture
• A diverse portfolio of commerce businesses to optimize
• Remote-first culture with distributed team management

Compensation

Our overall compensation and rewards package includes base pay, bonus or commission, and a variety of benefits. Base pay is determined within a range that allows you the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role.  The anticipated annualized salary range for this role is $200,000-$225,000. Your initial base pay will be determined based on several factors, including demonstrated skills, relevant education or training, experience, qualifications, travel requirements, and job location.

Benefits + Perks

As a company, we have a lot to offer for the right candidate:

• Health Benefits: We offer medical, dental, vision, life, and short-term and long-term disability insurance.
• 401K: Eligible on your first day of employment.
• Super Flex Time: Run errands as needed, just get your stuff done.
• Unlimited Vacation: Take time to unwind with unlimited PTO, plus an office closure between Christmas and New Year’s.
• Generous Parental Leave Program: 12 weeks of paid pregnancy disability and baby bonding leave, as well as 4 weeks of paid paternity leave.
• WFH Office: Home office stipend and internet dollars to set you up for success.
• Events: Happy hours, team bonding budgets, culture events (even while remote!) and an annual company offsite.

StackCommerce is an equal-opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition, or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.