Principal Staff Engineer, Web Platform

Scion Technology has been engaged to conduct a search for an experienced Principal Staff Engineer, Web Platform for our client, a global leader in make-on-demand e-commerce. This is a full-time, hybrid position based in Calabasas, California.

POSITION OVERVIEW

We are seeking a Principal Staff Engineer, Web Platform to serve as a senior technical leader within our engineering organization and a key partner to the VP of Engineering. This is a highly hands-on role focused on building, operating, and scaling high-traffic ecommerce web platforms in a fast-moving production environment.

Reporting directly to the VP of Engineering, this engineer will play a critical role in architecting, developing, troubleshooting, and maintaining our LAMP-based web applications and AWS infrastructure. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable writing production code, diagnosing complex site reliability issues, managing cloud infrastructure, and leading technical problem-solving during high-severity incidents.

PERKS

• Own and influence a high-traffic global ecommerce platform supporting millions of users and multiple consumer brands
• Operate at the intersection of software engineering, cloud infrastructure, and production reliability with broad technical ownership
• Partner directly with executive engineering leadership and play a key role in architectural and operational decisions
• Work in a highly entrepreneurial environment where senior engineers have real autonomy, visibility, and impact across the business

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Full-Stack Platform Engineering: Design, develop, and maintain scalable features and services across our LAMP-based ecommerce platform, with a strong focus on reliability, performance, maintainability, and operational excellence.
• Production Operations & Incident Response: Act as a senior technical escalation point for complex production incidents, troubleshooting issues across application, infrastructure, networking, database, CDN, and deployment layers. Lead root cause analysis and drive long-term stability improvements.
• AWS Infrastructure Ownership: Manage and optimize AWS infrastructure, including deployment architecture, scaling strategies, observability, security, disaster recovery, and cost efficiency. Partner closely with DevOps and engineering leadership on operational best practices.
• High-Scale Performance Optimization: Monitor and improve application, database, and infrastructure performance for high-traffic consumer web applications. Identify bottlenecks and implement scalable solutions to improve uptime, latency, and system resilience.
• Cross-Functional Technical Leadership: Partner with Product, Design, Operations, and Customer Experience teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions and ensure successful project execution.
• Global Engineering Collaboration: Work closely with the China-based engineering team to coordinate development efforts, conduct code reviews, align on architectural direction, manage releases, and maintain strong engineering communication across time zones.
• Code Quality & Engineering Standards: Champion high engineering standards through code reviews, testing strategies, documentation, observability, and operational best practices. Drive continuous improvement in system reliability and development processes.
• Technical Mentorship & Leadership: Provide technical mentorship and architectural guidance across the engineering organization. Influence technical direction through hands-on leadership, strong execution, and collaborative problem-solving.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Senior-Level Full-Stack Engineering Experience: 7 years of professional experience building and operating large-scale web applications, including substantial hands-on experience with the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).
• Strong AWS & Cloud Operations Expertise: Deep hands-on experience with AWS services and production cloud environments, including EC2, RDS, S3, Lambda, CloudWatch, networking, scaling, monitoring, and infrastructure troubleshooting.
• Ecommerce & High-Traffic Website Experience: Experience supporting high-volume consumer-facing websites or ecommerce platforms, with a strong understanding of scalability, uptime, performance optimization, and operational reliability.
• Production Troubleshooting Expertise: Demonstrated ability to diagnose and resolve complex production issues under pressure, including database replication issues, performance degradation, infrastructure failures, deployment issues, and site outages.
• Global Team Collaboration: Experience working effectively with offshore or globally distributed engineering teams, with strong communication, coordination, and cross-cultural collaboration skills.
• Engineering Best Practices: Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals including Git workflows, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, observability, code review practices, and secure development standards.
• Ownership Mentality: Self-directed engineer with strong operational instincts, excellent judgment, and the ability to independently own critical technical initiatives from design through production support.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

This direct hire position offers a salary range of $130,000 – 195,000 annually, commensurate with experience. We offer a robust benefits package that includes comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, along with additional perks.

ABOUT OUR FIRM

Scion Staffing is a national award-winning staffing firm! Since 2006, we have had the pleasure of successfully placing thousands of talented professionals with amazing career opportunities. Through our innovative team building and recruiting solutions, we bridge the gap in executive leadership searches, direct hire recruiting, interim leadership placement, and temporary professional staffing. We are proud to be part of the Forbes lists of the Best Recruitment Firms and the Best Executive Search Firms in America. Additionally, Scion has been recognized as a ClearlyRated Best of Staffing firm as well as a top recruitment firm by The Business Times. Additional information about our firm can also be found online.

Scion Staffing, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and service provider and does not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, citizenship status, sexual orientation, disability, political affiliation or belief, or any other protected class. We are committed to the principles of Equal Opportunity Employment and are dedicated to making employment decisions based on merit and value, for ourselves, our client companies, and the candidates we represent. For opportunities located in a region that have enacted fair chance, arrest or conviction-based employment ordinances, Scion Staffing proactively follows the enacted guidance and considers for employment all qualified applications with arrest and conviction records. We engage in socially conscious business practices and believe that diverse, inclusive, and non-biased talent and recruitment processes are foundational to the success of Scion as well as every client organization with whom we partner.