Staff Software Engineer
A senior hands-on IC at Axios (news media) who leads architecture and multi-team delivery of core products: full-stack work across React/Next.js frontends and Go/Python backend services, with heavy use of agentic AI coding tools to build, test, and operate AI-enabled features. Not a people-management role.
- Compensation
- $165K–$215K / yr
- Location
- Remote
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 7+ years
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 7+ years professional software development or equivalent sustained Staff-level impact
- Hands-on use of agentic coding tools (e.g. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) for meaningful multi-step work
- Ability to write clear strategies, specifications, acceptance criteria, and direct/redirect AI agents
- Critical review of AI-generated code; identify security, scalability, and maintainability risks
- Production frontend experience with JavaScript/TypeScript and React, preferably Next.js
- Production backend/services and APIs experience; work in or learn Go and Python
- Data fundamentals: relational databases, SQL, schema design, transactions, migrations
- Testing, accessibility, input validation, authentication, authorization, and web security practices
- Operate independently in ambiguity, make sound tradeoffs, connect decisions to product goals
- Strong communication: clear proposals, conveying risks and tradeoffs across functions
- Continuous learning about changing models, tools, and practices with an evidence-based approach
Nice to have
- Production AI-enabled features using model APIs, structured outputs, tool calling, retrieval, or agent workflows
- Operating AI systems via eval harnesses, tracing, prompt/model versioning, cost/latency monitoring, human review
- Extending AI dev environments with MCP servers, agent tools, plugins, or automated code review
- Led a multi-team architecture, platform, migration, or modernization initiative end to end
- Owned critical systems through incidents, scaling challenges, and long-term evolution
- Drove adoption of technical standards, reusable tools, or platform capabilities across teams
- Mentored experienced engineers beyond immediate team
- Experience with CMS, publishing, media, subscription, search, or consumer-facing products
- Production Go or Python with distributed systems using gRPC, cloud infrastructure, containers, queues, CI/CD
Full description
1 big thing: Axios is a growth-focused media company helping people get smarter, faster, on what matters. We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer—a senior, hands-on individual contributor—to lead architecture and delivery for Axios’ core products across multiple teams using strong product-engineering and AI-native practices.
Why it matters: Axios delivers clear, trustworthy news to millions of readers. You’ll be anchored to a product area while shaping full-stack systems and technical direction across multiple teams and connected systems. This is not a people-management role.
AI is core to how we build. You’ll use coding agents throughout implementation, testing, review, debugging, documentation, and operations while remaining accountable for architecture, quality, security, and product outcomes. Staff impact comes from sustained scope, judgment, and results—not tool use alone.
You’ll work with product managers, designers, engineers, and leaders to shape plans, align dependencies, resolve ambiguity, build resilient systems, and help others make better technical decisions.
Responsibilities:
As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll lead reliable product and platform work across Axios’ frontend and backend systems. You’ll remain hands-on while driving multi-quarter initiatives, improving technical coherence, and using agentic practices to accelerate delivery. Key responsibilities include:
- Cross-team technical leadership: Lead mission-critical or high-risk initiatives spanning teams and connected systems. Frame problems, align ownership and dependencies, make tradeoffs explicit, and drive production adoption.
- Architecture and design: Own architecture for a product area and scalable boundaries across frontend, APIs, data, and production systems. Lead design reviews and establish standards within your sphere of influence.
- Hands-on system ownership: Own the technical direction and long-term evolution of key systems while writing and reviewing code, prototyping, debugging, leading migrations, and operating services in production.
- AI-enabled product and engineering: Identify where models, agents, retrieval, or automation create value. Build reusable capabilities with measurable behavior, guardrails, and judgment about when conventional software is better.
- Quality, reliability, and incident leadership: Improve testing, performance, observability, security, and operational readiness. Anticipate systemic risks, address technical debt, and help lead resolution and learning during critical production issues.
- Technical leadership and mentorship: Mentor mid- and senior-level engineers across teams, spread systems thinking and design patterns, and build alignment through proposals, reviews, and influence without authority.