We are seeking a principal-level technical authority to own how that stack is architected, how it reaches the reader, and what "good" looks like at every layer between our systems and the browser
This role will set technical direction, make the architectural decisions that other engineers build against, and uphold the standards that protect the reader experience
This is a hands-on principal role: you lead by both influence and taking on work directly in an AI-native approach
Serve as the principal technical authority on front-end architecture for our web application framework, making the foundational calls on component design, state management, rendering strategy and what the rebuilt stack’s non-negotiables must be
Drive the implementation of an island architecture which teams build against to the guardrails that keep the platform coherent as it scales across brands
Establish and defend performance budgets and SLOs for the experiences that matter most to readers (load, render, scroll, media, page transitions), and make sure the platform ships to them
Own how we measure real reader experience: define the Real User Monitoring (RUM) and Core Web Vitals instrumentation, make sure it captures what actually matters in the field, and turn it into a continuous feedback loop on front-end and delivery health
Establish a governance framework for what reaches the page: surface the cost of third-party calls and integrations, set clear baselines, and hold the line on what does and does not end up in front of the reader
Own the architecture of the edge and delivery layer: CDN strategy, caching, and the cloud infrastructure that delivers our brands to a global audience
Stay ahead of the delivery landscape: evolving CDN capabilities, edge compute, and the fast-moving reality of bot and automated traffic, and translate those trends into how we architect for resilience, cost and performance
Raise the technical floor across the organization through design review, pairing, documentation and principled decision-making
Move into adjacent technical domains when the outcome requires it; the role is defined by the problems it resolves, not by fixed organizational boundaries
Treat AI as a default component of how you architect, prototype, investigate and ship, rather than as a peripheral experiment
Help raise the standard of AI-assisted work across the teams around you, sharing effective practice and assessing its limitations candidly
Ideate, build and launch agentic systems in production, moving from opportunity identification through design and implementation to operating them safely and measuring their impact
Act as a senior technical voice that non-technical stakeholders can rely on by translating reader-experience goals into engineering constraints and engineering realities into language partners can act on
Raise objections constructively when a proposal carries an unacceptable cost to performance, reliability or the reader experience, and propose a sound alternative
Our Tech Stack:
Languages & Frameworks: JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Astro, Node.js, GraphQL, REST
Experience with CDN configuration on a consumer facing public web system
Fluency in how the modern browser ecosystem (Chrome/Chromium and Safari/Webkit) behaves across both mobile and desktop, with mobile as the priority
Substantial experience as a senior individual contributor or technical leader on consumer-facing web at scale, with deep hands-on ownership of front-end architecture
Strong written and verbal communication
Experience profiling and debugging real performance: frame drops, slow renders, memory pressure, and the tooling used to find them
The ability to operate amid ambiguity: to take an initial business goal and produce a concrete, defensible technical plan
Hands-on experience with Real User Monitoring and Core Web Vitals
A working understanding of the adversarial side of web delivery (bot and automated traffic) and how it shapes architecture and cost
Familiarity with accessibility as a substantive engineering discipline rather than a compliance exercise
Background in media, publishing or other content-delivery platforms operating at high traffic and high editorial expectation