Platform Architect

ZAM Network is a multi-faceted company based in the United States, comprised of a full-service creative agency. ZAM specializes in building engaged gaming communities through its three core pillars of marketing, creative services and user research. We operate one of the largest gaming networks in the world including the #1 community for World of Warcraft, our flagship website, covering games, entertainment, wrestling, sports, and more! Our sites have a global reach of well over 45 million active users and our agency business continues to tackle exciting marketing and creative projects from our global gaming clientele.

We are seeking a Platform Architect to provide technical leadership across both frontend and backend systems while mentoring a small engineering team and remaining hands-on in architecture and development.

This role is responsible for helping operate, evolve, and scale the infrastructure powering a new community platform and one of the world’s largest gaming community. The platform serves millions of users and includes a high-traffic web application, real-time data services, distributed backend systems, and global CDN delivery.

You will guide the architecture of the entire web platform — from user-facing experiences to the backend services and infrastructure that power them. The ideal candidate combines strong full-stack expertise, production operations experience, and a pragmatic approach to scaling distributed systems and high-traffic consumer applications.

What You’ll Do

Technical Leadership

• Lead and mentor a small team of frontend and backend engineers
• Provide technical direction across the full platform architecture
• Establish engineering standards, development practices, and code quality expectations
• Conduct code reviews and technical design reviews
• Help prioritize engineering work and align projects with product goals
• Partner closely with product, design, and infrastructure teams
• Support hiring, onboarding, and professional development of engineers
• Foster a culture of ownership, reliability, and continuous improvement

Platform Architecture & Development

Full-Stack Platform Ownership

• Guide the architecture of both the frontend web platform and backend services
• Maintain scalable, modular codebases across the application stack
• Improve integration between frontend systems and backend APIs
• Design services that efficiently deliver dynamic and static content at scale
• Own services through the full lifecycle: design → implementation → deployment → monitoring → optimization

Frontend Architecture & Performance

• Own the structure and evolution of the web client
• Maintain a scalable frontend architecture built with modern JavaScript frameworks
• Improve page performance, responsiveness, and Core Web Vitals
• Optimize asset delivery, rendering paths, and browser performance
• Work closely with CDN caching and edge delivery strategies
• Ensure compatibility across browsers and devices
• Integrate frontend features with backend services and real-time data sources

Backend Systems & Infrastructure

• Design, build, and maintain backend services running in cloud environments
• Improve scalability, reliability, and performance of production systems
• Maintain microservices, background workers, and scheduled workloads
• Optimize high-traffic web delivery behind CDNs and load balancers
• Improve database performance, caching layers, and service efficiency
• Ensure systems are designed for high availability and resilience

Data & Services

• Develop services interacting with:
• Aurora MySQL databases
• Redis caching layers
• Static asset storage and CDN delivery
• Maintain background processing systems and task queues
• Support data-intensive features and content pipelines

Reliability & Operations

• Improve observability, monitoring, and alerting across the platform
• Monitor frontend and backend performance metrics
• Troubleshoot complex production issues across distributed systems
• Automate operational tasks and deployments
• Participate in on-call rotation for critical services
• Support incident response and postmortem analysis

Core Technologies You’ll Work With

Our stack reflects a large-scale, cloud-hosted web platform serving a global gaming audience.

Frontend

• JavaScript / TypeScript
• HTML / CSS
• Modern frameworks (React, Vue, or similar)
• Modern build systems and bundlers

Backend

• PHP-FPM
• Node.js services
• Nginx web tier
• Microservices and background workers

Infrastructure & Cloud

• AWS (Lambda, CloudFront, SES, Load Balancers)
• Kubernetes container orchestration
• Containerized services and scheduled workloads
• CDN architecture for global content delivery

Data Layer

• Aurora MySQL
• Redis caching
• Network file systems (EFS)

DevOps & Observability

• Jenkins CI/CD
• Prometheus monitoring
• Performance and error tracking tools

You do not need experience with every technology above — strong production experience with high-scale web platforms and distributed systems is the priority.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Experience leading technical projects or small engineering teams
• Strong full-stack engineering background (frontend and backend systems)
• Experience building and operating high-traffic web platforms
• Experience designing scalable distributed systems
• Deep understanding of web performance and backend service optimization
• Production experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS or similar)
• Experience with containerized systems (Kubernetes or similar)
• Strong knowledge of SQL and database performance optimization
• Experience implementing caching strategies and CDN delivery
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills
• Ability to balance hands-on engineering work with leadership responsibilities

Nice to Have

• Experience with large gaming or content platforms
• CDN optimization at scale
• Experience with server-side rendering or hybrid rendering
• Experience with large legacy codebases
• Background in data pipelines or scraping systems
• Infrastructure-as-Code experience
• Security and authentication system design
• Familiarity with Discord integrations or webhook-based systems
• Interest in gaming or MMO communities

The hiring salary range for this position applies to your geographical location (Example Tier 1: SF Bay Area, NYC Metro, Tier 2: Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, Tier 3 Austin, Dener, Chicago). Starting pay for the successful applicant depends on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education. The benefits available for this position include medical, dental, vision, 401(k) plan, life insurance coverage, and PTO. This position is bonus eligible.

We offer great perks:

• Eligibility for an annual discretionary performance bonus.
• Gaming allowance.
• Comprehensive benefit package including fully paid medical/dental/vision premiums for you and your family!
• Generous 401(k) matching contributions.
• Generous annual PTOs and paid holidays.

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer and committed to leveraging the diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experience of our workforce to create opportunities for our colleagues and our business. We do not discriminate in employment decisions on any protected category.

Pay: $150,000.00 - $200,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Application Question(s):

• Please describe your management style leading teams of engineers?
• Having familiarity of RPG is critical for this role. What are your favorite RPG games do you play?

Work Location: Remote