Staff WordPress Engineer

About Nexcess

Nexcess delivers specialized cloud infrastructure engineered for peak performance and rigorous compliance. We support a global client base, from high-growth agencies to mission-critical enterprise operations, with a legacy built on technical proficiency and collaborative client success. Our managed environments are backed by a dedicated team committed to operational excellence.

We also develop software that runs on our infrastructure, including The Events Calendar, LearnDash, and Kadence, installed on millions of WordPress sites worldwide.

Compensation: Base salary ranges from $120,000-$155,000, based on experience.

Staff Software Engineer Opportunity

We are seeking several Staff Software Engineers to provide technical direction across entire platform areas or multiple teams. This role focuses on architectural leadership and strategic problem-solving, rather than solely coding.

Nexcess is undertaking a significant consolidation of infrastructure and software under a unified architecture. This challenging work involves multiple hosting platforms and a portfolio of WordPress products used by millions of sites, requiring engineers who can define target architectures, lead migrations, and ensure backward compatibility without disrupting existing customers.

Candidates should be proficient in both PHP development and server operations, capable of diagnosing performance issues across the entire stack (query plans, caching, PHP-FPM, code) and making informed trade-offs regarding solutions. This is a permanently remote, full-time position, open to global candidates where legally permissible. A key requirement is at least four hours of daily overlap with US Eastern time (approximately 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM ET) to facilitate team collaboration and unblocking.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for a platform area, defining target architecture and migration paths.
• Own outcomes across team boundaries, focusing on domain-level impact.
• Lead consolidation and migration efforts across live systems, ensuring backward compatibility and robust rollback strategies.
• Make critical trade-off decisions (build vs. buy, performance vs. complexity, immediate fixes vs. long-term solutions).
• Drive automation of operational tasks, including provisioning, configuration, and maintenance.
• Design systems and define interfaces/architecture for other teams to build against.
• Identify and articulate unstated problems, such as recurring incidents or costly abstractions.
• Reduce ambiguity by transforming complex problems into actionable work for multiple teams.
• Serve as an escalation point for challenging technical issues or critical incidents.
• Partner with Engineering Managers and Product teams on roadmap, sequencing, and feasibility.
• Elevate engineering standards across teams through reviews, architectural discussions, and leading by example.
• Mentor Senior engineers to foster growth and distribute expertise.
• Produce essential documentation: design documents, RFCs, and post-incident write-ups.

Skills, Competencies, and Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with deep PHP expertise, including mastery of modern PHP 8.x (object-oriented design, dependency injection, Composer, PSR standards, static analysis).
• Demonstrated technical leadership across multiple teams, with experience setting direction and managing outcomes.
• Deep WordPress expertise: hooks, filters, REST API, WP-CLI, plugin architecture, and proven ability to ship upgrade-safe code for large, uncontrolled installed bases.
• Proficiency with Linux operating systems: process/service management, systemd, filesystems, permissions, networking fundamentals, and system load analysis.
• Strong shell scripting skills and a track record of automating operational work (deployments, migrations, diagnostics).
• Deep familiarity with the hosting stack: nginx/Apache, PHP-FPM tuning, MySQL/MariaDB query performance, and object caching (Redis/Memcached). Ability to profile and architect for performance constraints.
• Experience leading a significant migration, consolidation, or platform rewrite with backward compatibility, phased rollout, and a robust rollback plan.
• Ability to reason about cost, reliability, and operational burden in addition to technical correctness.
• Experience with automated testing using PHPUnit, Codeception, wp-browser, or equivalent, with a clear perspective on testing strategy.
• Excellent written communication skills for effective technical discourse and documentation.
• A degree in Computer Science or related field is welcome; equivalent practical experience is equally valued.

Preferred Qualifications and Experience

• React for admin interfaces, Block Editor UI, and control-panel development.
• Block Editor and block development, including the @wordpress/* package ecosystem.
• WooCommerce at scale: architecting for large catalogs, high order volume, and checkout performance.
• Magento or Adobe Commerce: architecting, operating, or hosting at scale.
• Configuration management and fleet automation with Ansible, Puppet, Chef, or Salt.
• Observability and profiling tools like New Relic, Xdebug, Query Monitor, or comparable APM.
• Infrastructure as code with Terraform, containers, and CI/CD pipeline ownership.
• Multi-tenant architecture and capacity planning experience.
• Accessible site building adhering to WCAG 2.1 AA and WAI-ARIA standards.
• Contributions to WordPress core or the wider open-source ecosystem.

Why Join Us?

This role offers a unique opportunity to make architectural decisions with both infrastructure and software in view. Product decisions directly impact the infrastructure, and platform decisions influence product capabilities, allowing you a significant say in their integration.

We are a remote-first, globally distributed team spanning multiple countries. Our work culture emphasizes asynchronous communication, documented decisions, and efficient meetings, highlighting the importance of strong written communication in this role.

Work Environment

The physical demands described are representative of those required for this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made for individuals with disabilities.

• Regularly required to speak and hear.
• Regularly required to use hands for keyboarding, gross, and fine manipulation.
• Works at a desk and computer screen for extended periods.
• Works in a traditional climate-controlled office environment or from home.
• Works in a highly stressful environment with diverse challenges, deadlines, and employee interactions.

Disclaimer

This job description summarizes typical functions and is not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities. Additional duties may be assigned. Liquid Web Inc. reserves the right to modify, interpret, or apply this description to support organizational needs. This description does not create an employment contract; employment remains “at will.”

Equal Employment Opportunity Policy

Liquid Web is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of age, color, disability, gender, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, military status, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic.