Director of Engineering, Pantheon
Hosting
$216-270k
+ Equity plan
More information about location
Website operations platform
Be an early applicant
Website operations platform
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
$216-270k
+ Equity plan
More information about location
201-500 employees
Company mission
To make the web a first-class platform that delivers results, one that empowers marketing and development teams to take control of their websites.
Role
Who you are
- We're looking for an engineering leader who has operated cloud infrastructure at scale — at a company that sells a cloud service, developer platform, or managed hosting product — and who understands what it means to support highly technical customers under real pressure
- You know what on-call looks like at this scale. You've handled critical customer escalations
- You have strong opinions about what good looks like, and you're not afraid to push for it
- 12+ years of engineering experience with 3+ years managing other managers
- Background at a company that sells a cloud service — you understand what it means to operate infrastructure that customers depend on and pay for
- Proven track record leading high-performing engineering teams through meaningful technical transformation
- Executive-level communication skills; able to translate complex infrastructure concepts for product, sales, and executive audiences
- Deep experience with on-call operations and customer escalation management at scale
- Advanced knowledge of GCP, AWS, or Azure and container orchestration systems (Kubernetes)
- Expert-level understanding of distributed systems, cloud-native infrastructure, and large-scale multi-tenant hosting environments
- Hands-on experience with the database and caching technologies that power production web infrastructure: Nginx, MySQL, Redis, Memcached, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch
- Strong familiarity with web runtime environments: PHP, Node.js, and related application server technologies
- Experience with CDN and edge delivery architecture — caching strategies, cache invalidation, edge performance optimization
- Proficiency in Go, Python, or equivalent systems-oriented languages
- Supporting AI-native development workflows, including LLM integration and agentic automation
- Staff-level architectural knowledge with a track record of driving decisions through in-depth technical discussion
What the job involves
- Pantheon is seeking a Director of Engineering to lead the Hosting Platform - the team responsible for the infrastructure powering 700,000+ websites and 17 billion monthly page views
- This is not a supporting role. You will own the technical direction of the systems at the core of Pantheon's business: edge delivery, container orchestration, database services, and site lifecycle management at scale
- Own the technical roadmap for Pantheon's hosting infrastructure, driving reliability, scalability, and performance across hundreds of thousands of customer sites and billions of monthly requests
- Lead and mentor Engineering Managers and senior engineers, building a high-performing team with a culture of ownership, operational rigor, and continuous improvement
- Drive architectural decisions for large-scale distributed systems, with particular focus on edge delivery, caching strategies, database operations, and multi-tenant infrastructure
- Define and enforce SLOs, observability standards, and incident response practices that keep the platform stable and customers confident
- Manage critical customer escalations directly — understanding the technical depth of what customers are running and communicating clearly under pressure
- Balance technical debt against platform stability, making principled trade-offs that keep the system healthy as it scales
- Represent Pantheon's technical interests with key technology partners and vendors
- Champion AI-native engineering practices across the team, integrating AI tooling into workflows, automation, and architectural decision-making
Our take
In today's digital landscape, website hosting is a critical component for businesses, and the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable hosting platforms is higher than ever. The competition is fierce, with major players like GoDaddy, Ionos, AWS, and WP Engine dominating the space.
One standout in this crowded market is Pantheon, a leading WebOps platform designed to deliver high-performance hosting for content-driven websites. Pantheon's unique value lies in its ability to provide seamless collaboration between developers and marketers while ensuring fast, reliable website performance. It's a platform that goes beyond traditional hosting by offering powerful tools for managing websites and scaling them as needed - making it a go-to choice for many organisations.
Pantheon has continuously innovated to stay ahead of the competition, with significant investments driving its growth. Initially focused on hosting solutions for WordPress and Drupal websites, it now offers content management as a service. This expansion was bolstered by significant funding, fueling further product development and the introduction of new features like personalisation and analytics. These efforts have reinforced Pantheon's position as a leader in the WebOps and hosting space.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-19% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Jul 2021
$100m
SERIES E
Mar 2019
$40m
SERIES D
Total funding: $196.8m
Company benefits
- Health & Wellness: Taking care of you and your family is important to us. Our healthcare benefits program delivers choice and value so you can prioritize your health
- Remote & In-Office: We believe in a flexible employee experience, our San Francisco office is a center for collaboration and connection, but it's not the only place this happens
- Flexible Time-Off: We encourage work/life balance. Take time off when you need it, and return ready to make magic on the internet when you're ready and refreshed
- Monthly Book & Gym Allowance: One of the many ways we enable our team to take control of their development and wellness is to take advantage of our books and gym membership allowance
- Promoting Inclusivity: We strive to have a culture where Pantheors across the globe feel a high sense of belonging and engagement. We have several programs in place to help cultivate inclusion at Pantheon, including educational events, open forums, and training opportunities
- Giving Back: We believe in cultivating passion and giving back to the community we live and work in. Pantheon offers a Donation Matching program of $500 per employee and holds multiple team volunteer opportunities throughout the year
- Employee Resource Groups: Our Pantheon Resource Groups (PRGs) allow employees to connect, support each other, and spread awareness
- Professional Development: We support employee learning and development through company led-training, leadership forums, and full access to LinkedIn Learning's catalogue of courses
Company HQ
Chinatown, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Sameer Kazi
(CEO)Joined Pantheon in 2024 as CEO. They have also served as the Managing Director of Operating Capital since 2015. Previously they were the President of ActiveCampaign and CEO of Cheetah Digital.
Josh Koenig
(Co-Founder & SVP of Marketing)They were part of the team that drove the first high-profile public Drupal use-case with the Howard and Dean campaign in 2003. They then went on to found the Drupal Dojo, an online learning community for developers, and to co-found the premiere Drupal agency in San Francisco, Chapter Three.
David Strauss
(Co-Founder & Advisor)After co-founding Four Kitchens, a successful Web Development shop, they found themselves gravitating away from the customer client work and towards infrastructure solutions. Large clients like NBCUniversal, The Economics, and Wikimedia had already benefited from their scalability and database optimization work.
Share this job
View 22 more jobs at Pantheon