Principal Software Engineer, Pantheon
Hosting
$187.2-234k
+ Equity Plan
More information about location
Website operations platform
Be an early applicant
Website operations platform
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
$187.2-234k
+ 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
- 10+ years of software development experience, with significant tenure building platform or infrastructure products
- 5+ years of experience designing and architecting large-scale distributed systems
- Proficiency with container orchestration (Kubernetes), web server technologies (NGINX, PHP, Node.js, or similar), and infrastructure-as-code practices
- Demonstrated ability to own and improve a production platform serving millions of concurrent users or requests
- Proficiency in Go, Python, or equivalent systems-oriented languages
- Deep expertise in distributed systems design, large-scale service architecture, and cloud-native infrastructure (Pantheon runs on Google Cloud)
- Experience building or operating CDN, edge delivery, or networking-layer systems at scale — including caching strategies, cache invalidation, and edge performance optimization
- Strong understanding of multi-tenant hosting platforms — including the SLO definition, observability, and incident response required to operate them at scale for hundreds of thousands of customer sites
- Experience operating database systems as managed services — relational and non-relational — with appreciation for the operational complexity involved
- AI-native engineering practices — including fluency with AI coding assistants (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code) and a track record of integrating AI tools into engineering workflows, automation, and architectural decision-making
- Experience building agentic and LLM-powered systems — including task orchestration, prompt engineering, and RAG — with the ability to prototype and ship AI features to production
- Awareness of the infrastructure requirements of AI workloads — including model serving, GPU/accelerator provisioning, inference latency optimization, and cost trade-offs at scale
What the job involves
- Pantheon is seeking a Principal Engineer to join our Hosting Platform — the team responsible for the infrastructure powering 700,000+ websites and 17 billion monthly page views
- You’ll work at the core of what makes Pantheon run: the systems that provision, serve, and scale sites across our Global CDN, Google Cloud infrastructure, and developer toolchain
- We're looking for someone who has built or operated infrastructure at scale — at a CDN or edge provider, a developer platform, or a database-as-a-service company — and who brings AI-native instincts to the work: using AI tools to accelerate debugging, automate toil, and make better architectural decisions faster
- At Pantheon, AI isn't a feature we're adding — it's how we work
- You'll partner across Engineering, Product, and Security to shape the future of our platform, and make decisions that affect how hundreds of thousands of sites are built, deployed, and delivered every day
- Define and drive the technical roadmap for platform reliability, scalability, and performance across hundreds of thousands of sites and billions of monthly requests
- Architect, build, and evolve the core services underpinning Pantheon’s hosting platform — including edge delivery, container orchestration, database services, and site lifecycle management
- Partner with product, security, and infrastructure teams to identify root causes and design iterative, high-impact solutions
- Balance immediate business needs against long-term architectural health, making principled trade-offs that keep the platform sustainable as it scales
- Provide technical leadership across the engineering organization — setting direction, reviewing designs, and raising the bar for quality, reliability, and operability
- Mentor and coach engineers at all levels, providing technical guidance and growing engineering talent across the broader organization
- Contribute to an engineering-wide culture of collaboration, blameless postmortems, and continuous improvement
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.
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