Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Communications Platform)

<p>Squarespace is looking for a Backend Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical direction of our Communications Platform team. The Communications Platform is a critical engine powering customer engagement across Squarespace — providing internal teams with a scalable, reliable, and secure infrastructure for delivering communications via email, push notifications and in-product messaging.</p> <p>The team owns multiple interconnected production platforms that collectively send over 1.75+ million notifications per day, strategic initiatives including platform modernization, In-Product Placements, and multi-channel communication capabilities.</p> <p>In this role, you’ll serve as the senior technical voice for the team — driving architecture, shaping roadmap execution, and elevating the engineering quality of a small but high-impact team. This is a hands-on role with real technical depth, paired with broad cross-functional influence.</p> <p>This is a hybrid role based in our NYC office (3 days per week), reporting to the Engineering Manager of Communications Platform.</p> <h2><strong>You’ll Get To… </strong></h2> <ul> <li>Drive the architecture, design, and implementation of the Communications Platform’s platforms — including Email Delivery, In-Product Notifications and Push Notifications.</li> <li>Define and own the technical strategy for platform modernization, reliability hardening, and engineering standards across backend services.</li> <li>Provide hands-on technical leadership and mentorship to a team of backend and frontend engineers, helping them grow in system design, decision-making, and ownership.</li> <li>Write high-quality Java code and stay close to execution — leading design reviews, code reviews, and architectural decisions that raise the bar across the codebase.</li> <li>Proactively identify and address systemic risks in performance, reliability, security, and operability before they become incidents.</li> <li>Serve as a key technical partner on cross-team and company-wide architecture initiatives.</li> <li>Balance short-term delivery with long-term platform health, communicating tradeoffs clearly to stakeholders and leadership.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Who We’re Looking For </strong></h2> <ul> <li>10+ years of backend engineering experience, with significant time building and operating large-scale, customer-facing systems.</li> <li>Deep expertise in Java and backend service development, including APIs, async processing, messaging systems (ex: Kafka), and data stores (ex: MongoDB, CockroachDB).</li> <li>Strong experience with distributed systems in production — including reliability, scaling, failure modes, and observability.</li> <li>A proven track record of technical leadership at the Staff or Senior-plus level, influencing architecture across multiple teams or services.</li> <li>Experience evolving existing systems — modernizing legacy platforms, simplifying complexity, and strengthening reliability without unnecessary rewrites.</li> <li>Experience operating within platform engineering contexts, where your customers are internal or external product teams and the quality of your APIs and abstractions directly shapes their velocity.</li> <li>A strong understanding of multi-channel communication infrastructure (email delivery, push, in-product notifications) is a meaningful plus.</li> <li>The ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical partners.</li> <li>A mindset oriented toward mentorship, collaboration, and inclusive technical leadership.</li> </ul> <h2>Technologies You'll Work With</h2> <ul> <li>Java, Spring, Kafka, MongoDB, CockroachDB, Kubernetes, GCP.</li> <li>The team actively uses Claude Code, Cursor and GitHub Copilot to accelerate development and code review.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Benefits &amp; Perks</strong></h2> <ul> <li>A choice between medical plans with an option for 100% covered premiums&nbsp;</li> <li>Fertility and adoption benefits</li> <li>Access to supplemental insurance plans for additional coverage</li> <li>Headspace mindfulness app subscription</li> <li>Global Employee Assistance Program</li> <li>Retirement benefits with employer match</li> <li>Flexible paid time off</li> <li>12 weeks paid parental leave and family care leave</li> <li>Pretax commuter benefit</li> <li>Education reimbursement</li> <li>Employee donation match to community organizations</li> <li>7 Global Employee Resource Grou