About the role We're looking for a talented Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical direction of our public web experiences—the front door of our business. Millions of families start their senior care search on our site, most of them arriving through organic search (SEO) and paid search (SEM). Every millisecond of load time, every indexable page, and every well-run experiment directly shapes whether a family finds the help they need. This is a web-focused, full-stack role. You'll bring deep front-end and rendering expertise, plus solid working knowledge of the Next.js, data stores, and content systems behind the experience. You'll select the technologies, architectural patterns, and design approaches the team adopts, and provide technical leadership and mentorship to the engineers who build and maintain our web platform. The ideal candidate is a hands-on technical leader who understands how a page reaches a user—how it's rendered, cached, crawled, and measured—and can explain the trade-offs for SEO, performance, and cost in plain terms. You treat experimentation, analytics, and AI as core parts of engineering, and you lift up the engineers around you. This position reports to the Senior Manager of Engineering – Web. You'll partner closely with product, design, marketing, and SEO stakeholders, and collaborate with peer engineering teams across the company. Responsibilities Lead the architecture of our Next.js and React web platform, choosing the right rendering strategy (SSR, SSG/ISR, CSR, streaming) for each page type Own mobile-first performance and Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS): set budgets, monitor real users, and drive measurable gains Partner with SEO and marketing on technical SEO: crawlability, indexation, structured data, canonicals, redirects, sitemaps, and SEM landing pages Build Node.js services and APIs on MongoDB and relational stores, with caching at the edge and server layers Evolve our headless CMS (Sanity) so content and marketing teams can ship pages without engineering bottlenecks Build experimentation and analytics foundations: feature flags, A/B tests, SSR-safe flag evaluation, and a trustworthy event taxonomy (PostHog, Segment, or similar) Champion quality and continuous deployment through testing (unit, integration, e2e), pipeline automation, and design system adoption Review code, create reference implementations, and mentor engineers across the team Resolve production issues end to end, from the browser through the CDN, rendering, and service layers, and prevent recurrence Partner with product and project managers to deliver on time, and keep technical documentation current AI solution architecture & standards: Architect smaller AI features end to end—retrieval, orchestration, failure modes, and monitoring—such as AI-assisted search, content generation, or personalization on our site Guide teams in responsible AI patterns, testing, and observability Partner with Product to size the feasibility, technical risk, cost, and scalability of AI features Identify repeatable frameworks and components that can become paved paths for other teams Improve AI evaluation practices, including quality scoring, metrics, and fallbacks Use AI coding agents in your daily workflow and help define how the team adopts them Required Skills & Competencies 10+ years of software engineering with JavaScript/TypeScript, React, and Node.js, including high-traffic public websites Deep expertise in Next.js (or a similar framework) and rendering strategies—SSR, SSG/ISR, CSR, hydration, and streaming—and their impact on SEO, performance, and cost Proven track record improving Core Web Vitals and mobile performance using tools like Lighthouse, CrUX, and real-user monitoring Strong technical SEO knowledge, including how JavaScript rendering affects search engines Working back-end knowledge: Node.js APIs and services, MongoDB, and relational databases (GraphQL a plus) Understanding of headless CMS concepts: content modeling, preview, and publishing workflows Understanding of experimentation, feature flagging, and product analytics: test design, flag lifecycle, event tracking, and data quality Hands-on experience building LLM-backed features (prompt design, retrieval, structured output, evaluation, cost and latency management) and fluency with AI coding agents Experience with AWS, CDNs, and edge caching Strong communication skills: able to explain a technical vision simply to audiences at every level Track record of technical leadership: setting standards, mentoring engineers, and owning quality from design to production Our stack: TypeScript, React, Next.js, Node.js, GraphQL, MongoDB, Sanity, PostHog, Segment, AWS, GitHub Actions, and AI coding agents (Claude, Codex, Gemini). Hands-on experience with any of these is a plus, as is: Programmatic SEO at scale, such as thousands of templated location or listing pages SEM landing pages and conversion rate optimization Edge rendering and middleware (Vercel, CloudFront, or similar) Healthcare, senior care, or privacy-aware analytics and consent management About the company A Place for Mom is the leading platform guiding families through every stage of the aging journey. Together, we simplify the senior care search with free, personalized support — connecting caregivers and their loved ones to vetted providers from our network of 15,000+ senior living communities and home care agencies. Since 2000, our teams have helped millions of families find care that fits their needs. Behind every referral and resource is a shared goal: to help families focus on what matters most — their love for each other. We’re proud to be a mission-driven company where every role contributes to improving lives. Caring isn’t just a core value — it’s who we are. Whether you’re supporting families directly or driving innovation behind the scenes, your work at A Place for Mom makes a real difference. Our employees live the company values every day Mission Over Me: We find purpose in helping caregivers and their senior loved ones while approaching our work with empathy. Do Hard Things: We are energized by solving challenging problems and see it as an opportunity to grow. Drive Outcomes as a Team: We each own the outcome but can only achieve it as a team. Win The Right Way: We see organizational integrity as the foundation for how we operate. Embrace Change: We innovate and constantly evolve. Additional Information A Place for Mom has recently become aware of the fraudulent use of our name on job postings and via recruiting emails that are illegitimate and not in any way associated with us. APFM will never ask you to provide sensitive personal information as part of the recruiting process, such as your social security number; send you any unsolicited job offers or employment contracts; require any fees, payments, or access to financial accounts; and/or extend an offer without conducting an interview. If you suspect you are being scammed or have been scammed online, you may report the crime to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and obtain more information regarding online scams at the Federal Trade Commission. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines. A Place for Mom uses E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of all newly hired employees. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, please visit www.dhs.gov/E-Verify http://www.dhs.gov/E-Verify.
