Senior Full-Stack Software Engineer, Games – Web Platform

The New York Times•New York, NY

5d•$140,000 - $160,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The New York Times is seeking a Senior Full-Stack Engineer for the Games Web Platform squad. The role shapes and strengthens the platform behind the company’s games, building capabilities that enable teams to deliver engaging, reliable experiences and turn new puzzle ideas into scalable product capabilities. The engineer owns complex work across the application and helps establish the foundation for new game experiences. Working with engineers, designers, product managers, and production partners, the engineer guides technical decisions from discovery through launch, balancing player experience with maintainable, reliable systems. The role also contributes to the engineering organization through mentorship, technical reviews, and knowledge-sharing. The team builds web applications using React, semantic HTML, and SCSS, with a focus on accessibility and performance. The position contributes across the stack, including front-end architecture and shared platform capabilities, as well as performant Go APIs. Infrastructure runs on Amazon Web Services, with Fastly for edge delivery and caching. This is a hybrid role based at the New York City headquarters, typically requiring attendance in the office 2–3 or more days per week. The position reports to the Engineering Manager, Platform squad.

Requirements

At least 5 years of software engineering experience building, deploying, and operating high-traffic web applications and distributed systems.
Ability to lead complex engineering work from design through production, make sound technical tradeoffs, and partner across Product, Design, and Editorial.
Experience building accessible, performant web experiences with modern JavaScript (ES6+), semantic HTML, CSS/SCSS, and React or a similar framework.
Experience designing shared component libraries or platform capabilities used by multiple teams, including attention to API design, documentation, adoption, and long-term support.
Experience building performant, scalable APIs and services using Go, Java, or Python.
Experience deploying and operating production services in cloud environments such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform, using technologies such as databases, Redis, Docker, and CDNs or edge platforms such as Fastly.
Experience strengthening production quality and reliability through testing, monitoring, and observability.
Ability to contribute technical leadership through design and code reviews, sound technical decisions, mentorship, and knowledge-sharing.

Nice To Haves

Prior engineering experience in the gaming industry with web-based games, puzzles, or interactive media.
Interest in mission-driven engineering and partnering with a team to support The New York Times’ journalistic independence.
Experience with CI/CD automation such as GitHub Actions, Drone, or Terraform, and a DevOps approach to platform stability.
Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools such as Datadog, Sentry, or Grafana.
A product-first mindset focused on end-user satisfaction and editorial efficiency.
A growth-oriented mindset, including willingness to embrace technical challenges, learn from mistakes, and share findings.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and evolution of foundational web platform capabilities and shared component libraries for reliable, accessible, high-quality Games experiences.
Lead the design and operation of performant, scalable Go APIs and services supporting the Games ecosystem.
Partner with Product, Design, and Production on complex projects; shape technical approaches, weigh tradeoffs, and turn creative concepts into reliable product capabilities.
Improve performance, accessibility, and reliability across the Games suite using modern front-end practices and edge delivery capabilities.
Improve developer experience by building and evolving tools, including Claude Code tooling.
Provide technical leadership through architecture and code reviews, clear engineering standards, and mentorship.
Strengthen production quality through appropriate testing, monitoring, and operational practices to identify and address issues in owned systems.
Support and understand the value of journalistic independence and demonstrate commitment to The New York Times mission.