Director Software Engineering

Who are we hiring?

We are seeking a strategic Director of Software Engineering to join our leadership team at Sphere. In this role, you will be responsible for driving the architectural vision, technical direction, and engineering excellence across our key web applications. As a key member of the Sphere Product Management team, you will oversee the development, enhancement, and optimization of two critical web platforms: our Ticket Sales, Partnerships, and Studios websites. You will ensure these platforms are robust, scalable, and meet the highest standards for performance, security, and user experience. Your role will be instrumental in shaping the technology stack, including React, CSS, NodeJS, and Express, while managing a team of globally distributed third-party engineering, QA, and DevOps partners. You will work closely with internal teams to align product goals and technical strategy, while optimizing agile processes to accelerate product development. Your leadership will foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement, ensuring both immediate impact and long-term success across our platforms. Comfort with AWS, GCP, serverless platforms and automation frameworks, deep expertise in DevOps, and experience working with headless CMS is necessary.

What will you do? 

• Lead the design and implementation of robust information security protocols, ensuring secure development and production environments.
• Oversee the management of access controls, identity management, and data protection practices while ensuring compliance with industry standards and best practices to safeguard sensitive data and systems.
• Drive the adoption and optimization of CI/CD methodologies to automate the integration, testing, and deployment of software applications.
• Utilize automation to streamline the software development lifecycle, fostering faster, more reliable releases, while enhancing collaboration across engineering teams and improving overall efficiency in delivering high-quality software.
• Lead Software Engineers, QA, and DevOps directly and indirectly at multiple levels on projects and in their personal development.
• Establish and evolve engineering success metrics to align technical execution with business objectives, ensuring measurable impact on velocity, quality, and system reliability.
• Build UIs in React, Redux, CSS, HTML, and other technologies using Webpack with ESModules.
• Actively participate in and contribute to all Agile ceremonies and take personal responsibility for the success of each Sprint.

What do you need to succeed?  

• 10+ years of hands-on development experience with JavaScript, with advanced understanding of design patterns and best practices.
• 5+ years of experience developing NodeJS APIs (Express, AWS Lambda, API Gateway, AppSync, GCP), building performant ReactJS/Redux UIs, and managing teams and vendors.
• Experience working with a headless CMS or custom Content tooling.
• Proficient in web app tooling (Webpack, Git/GitHub, Create React App etc.) with strong expertise in building NodeJS services using Express and serverless/microservice architectures like Lambda for RESTful APIs.
• Experience working with a headless CMS or custom Content tooling.
• Proficient with testing frameworks such as Jest, Mocha, Chai, Sinon, CucumberJS, and Webdriver IO, along with ESLint configuration (JavaScript Standard Style, AirBnB).
• Experienced in cloud-only environments (AWS, GCP) and familiar with caching technologies including CDNs (CloudFront), in-memory caches (Redis, Memcached), page caches (Varnish), and GraphQL caching.
• Preferred knowledge of PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, ElasticSearch (APIs and SDKs), and experience with consumer or enterprise-scale applications.
• Skilled in establishing and maintaining coding conventions, design patterns, and best practices, with strong adaptability to emerging cloud and IT technologies.
• Strong collaboration skills to work across organizational boundaries and drive broader business objectives.

Special Requirements

• Non-standard work hours may arise as needed
• The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $230,000 - $260,000 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations for this role in Burbank and New York City. This role is available onsite in both aforementioned cities.

#LI-Onsite