Principal Staff Engineer, Web Platform

Scion Technology has been engaged to conduct a search for an experienced Principal Staff Engineer, Web Platform for our client, a global leader in make-on-demand e-commerce.
This is a full-time, hybrid position based in Calabasas, California.

We are seeking a Principal Staff Engineer, Web Platform to serve as a senior technical leader within our engineering organization and a key partner to the VP of Engineering. This is a highly hands‑on role focused on building, operating, and scaling high‑traffic ecommerce web platforms in a fast‑moving production environment.

Reporting directly to the VP of Engineering, this engineer will play a critical role in architecting, developing, troubleshooting, and maintaining our LAMP‑based web applications and AWS infrastructure. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable writing production code, diagnosing complex site reliability issues, managing cloud infrastructure, and leading technical problem‑solving during high‑severity incidents.

• Own and influence a high‑traffic global ecommerce platform supporting millions of users and multiple consumer brands
• Operate at the intersection of software engineering, cloud infrastructure, and production reliability with broad technical ownership
• Partner directly with executive engineering leadership and play a key role in architectural and operational decisions
• Work in a highly entrepreneurial environment where senior engineers have real autonomy, visibility, and impact across the business

• Full‑Stack Platform Engineering: Design, develop, and maintain scalable features and services across our LAMP‑based ecommerce platform, with a strong focus on reliability, performance, maintainability, and operational excellence.
• Production Operations & Incident Response
  :
  Act as a senior technical escalation point for complex production incidents, troubleshooting issues across application, infrastructure, networking, database, CDN, and deployment layers. Lead root cause analysis and drive long‑term stability improvements.
• AWS Infrastructure Ownership
  :
  Manage and optimize AWS infrastructure, including deployment architecture, scaling strategies, observability, security, disaster recovery, and cost efficiency. Partner closely with Dev Ops and engineering leadership on operational best practices.
• High‑Scale Performance Optimization
  :
  Monitor and improve application, database, and infrastructure performance for high‑traffic consumer web applications. Identify bottlenecks and implement scalable solutions to improve uptime, latency, and system resilience.
• Cross‑Functional Technical Leadership: Partner with Product, Design, Operations, and Customer Experience teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions and ensure successful project execution.
• Global Engineering Collaboration
  :
  Work closely with the China‑based engineering team to coordinate development efforts, conduct code reviews, align on architectural direction, manage releases, and maintain strong engineering communication across time zones.
• Code Quality & Engineering Standards
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  Champion high engineering standards through code reviews, testing strategies, documentation, observability, and operational best practices. Drive continuous improvement in system reliability and development processes.
• Technical Mentorship & Leadership
  :
  Provide technical mentorship and architectural guidance across the engineering organization. Influence technical direction through hands‑on leadership, strong execution, and collaborative problem‑solving.

• Senior‑Level Full‑Stack Engineering
  
  Experience:
  
  7+ years of professional experience building and operating large‑scale web applications, including substantial hands‑on experience with the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).
• Strong AWS & Cloud Operations Expertise
  :
  Deep hands‑on experience with AWS services and production cloud environments, including EC2, RDS, S3, Lambda, Cloud Watch, networking, scaling, monitoring, and infrastructure troubleshooting.
• Ecommerce & High‑Traffic Website Experience
  :
  Experience supporting high‑volume consumer‑facing websites or ecommerce platforms, with a strong…