Lead / Senior Software Engineer (Full-Stack, Node.js + AWS)

About Social News Desk:

Social News Desk is a leading provider of social media management solutions, helping news organizations, local governments, and educational institutions connect with their communities and deliver impactful stories online. Our platform powers the publishing, analytics, and audience engagement strategies for hundreds of trusted organizations.

We are passionate about building software that makes social media management simpler, smarter, and more effective — and we’re looking for a strong technical leader to help guide the next phase of our platform’s evolution.

Role Overview:

We’re seeking an experienced Lead / Senior Software Engineer to take a hybrid engineering leadership and hands-on development role on our core platform team.

In this position, you’ll partner directly with the Head of Engineering to set technical direction, guide architectural decisions, and ensure our SaaS infrastructure remains scalable, secure, and performant. You’ll manage and mentor a team of talented developers (both in-house and long-term contractors), oversee code quality and release processes, and play a pivotal role in the success of our platform.

This is a 50%+ leadership role — with responsibilities that may lean toward up to 75% management and technical leadership at times — while still contributing directly to critical codebases and infrastructure work.

Key Responsibilities

Engineering Leadership:

• Lead daily standups and coordinate weekly sprint execution and priorities
• Drive technical design discussions, architecture decisions, and implementation strategies
• Own/lead code reviews and source code standards across multiple repositories
• Mentor engineers and foster a culture of clean, scalable, maintainable code
• Guide long-term contractors and internal developers in delivering high-impact features

Delivery & Operations:

• Plan, coordinate, and oversee production releases and deployment pipelines
• Own uptime, reliability, and observability of production systems
• Monitor and optimize cloud vendor cost and utilization

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Partner closely with Product to shape feature priorities and technical feasibility
• Interface with third-party partners and social platforms to manage integrations and compliance
• Champion DevOps best practices, CI/CD automation, and internal developer productivity tools
• Contribute to overall engineering hiring, onboarding, and process improvements as we scale

Qualifications

Required:

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience (Node.js + AWS)
• 2+ years of experience leading engineering teams (as tech lead, manager, or equivalent)
• Significant experience with AI-assisted software development (tools, methods, and research)
• Strong background designing and scaling backend services and APIs
• Experience managing production infrastructure in a serverless or distributed environment
• Proven track record delivering reliable, customer-facing SaaS products
• Strong communication skills and the ability to align technical execution with business goals

Preferred:

• Experience integrating with third-party APIs (especially social media platforms)
• Familiarity with real-time messaging (socket.io, WebSockets, or other techniques)
• Exposure to cost-optimization and infrastructure budgeting
• Previous work in a SaaS, public sector and/or B2B software

Tech Stack You’ll Work With:

• Backend: Node.js, Serverless Framework, AWS Lambda, API Gateway, Elastic Beanstalk
• Frontend: React (SPA), React Native (Expo)
• Infrastructure: AWS (S3, CloudFront, IAM, CloudWatch), Redis Labs, MongoDB Atlas
• Integrations: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Threads, Youtube, TikTok, RSS, and other social APIs
• Collaboration & Tools: GitHub, Asana, Slack, Claude Code (AI-assisted coding, or other equivalents)

Compensation & Benefits:

• Retirement benefits plans
• Comprehensive healthcare coverage (medical, dental, vision)
• Paid vacation and parental leave
• Fully remote work environment within approved states
• Opportunities for growth into senior engineering leadership roles

Why Join Us:

• Make an impact: Lead the technical direction of a platform used by hundreds of organizations every day
• Shape the future: Help define our next generation of architecture, infrastructure, and feature velocity
• Grow your career: Build and mentor a team, influence strategy, and expand your leadership scope
• Collaborative culture: Work with passionate people who care deeply about quality, innovation, and customers
• Competitive compensation and benefits: We value our people and invest in their growth and well-being