Staff Software Engineer

Staff Software Engineer

Remote (US-based)

Salary: Starting at $145K

Tech Stack:

Frontend: Next.js, React

Backend: Node.js, TypeScript, Payload CMS

Cloud Infrastructure: AWS, Vercel, Neon, Cloudflare Workers

Data & Analytics: BigQuery, Dataform, dbt, Python

AI: Custom TypeScript LLM service

ABOUT US

Come Near is a group of people moved to raise the public conversation about Jesus. They create, curate, and connect people to authentic Jesus stories and experiences. Most widely recognized is the group’s “He Gets Us” campaign, which invites people to reconsider Jesus and has reached millions of Americans since launching in 2021. To learn more, visit comenear.org.

Candidates for this role are required to sign the organization’s Statement of Faith, which closely aligns with Come Near’s mission-driven focus of inviting all people one step closer to the authentic Jesus from wherever they are.

POSITION SUMMARY

Come Near is a lean, fully distributed nonprofit behind the He Gets Us campaign, reaching hundreds of millions of people across the world’s largest media moments. We’re hiring a Staff Engineer to own the technical design of our highest-priority initiative: a personalized digital engagement platform.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design and document end-to-end architecture spanning products, data platforms, and cloud infrastructure.

• Define technical standards, API patterns, and integration contracts for both internal and vendor engineering teams.

• Architect systems for reliability, scalability, observability, and operational resilience, including support for high-impact, high-traffic events and traffic spikes.

• Review vendor designs, implementations, and code contributions for architectural quality, security, performance, and long-term maintainability.

• Collaborate with the AI and data teams on personalization logic, event tracking, and pipeline architecture, with specific attention to how personal/sensitive user data is collected, stored, and used.

• Set and enforce a practical security and data privacy baseline appropriate to handling sensitive personal data at scale.

• Identify and mitigate architectural, security, operational, and vendor-related risks before they become delivery, reliability, or business issues.

• Remain an active technical contributor by shipping critical code, prototyping architectural decisions before standardizing them, and leading through implementation rather than direction alone.

• Make build-vs-buy and build-vs-vendor recommendations that balance technical quality, delivery speed, operational complexity, and cost.

• Set the standard for technical documentation across the organization, including architecture decision records (ADRs), design documents, technical standards, and operational runbooks.

• Advise the Sr. Engineering Manager and VP of Engineering and Analytics on architecture strategy, technical risk, platform evolution, and major technical investment decisions.

COMPETENCIES

• Able to influence internal engineers and external vendor teams without formal authority through technical expertise, sound judgment, and credibility.

• Async-fluent and self-directed, capable of driving complex, multi-week technical initiatives with minimal oversight.

• Strong technical writing skills, producing clear architecture decisions, design documents, implementation guidance, and review feedback.

• Comfortable holding a technical line under pressure, pushing back when shortcuts introduce unacceptable long-term risk.

• Pragmatic about tradeoffs, balancing engineering rigor with delivery realities in a lean, mission-driven environment.

• Comfortable operating with ambiguity and incomplete requirements, bringing structure and clarity to loosely defined problems.

• Demonstrates strong systems thinking, understanding how technical decisions affect reliability, security, maintainability, cost, scalability, and team effectiveness.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including meaningful experience operating at the Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, Architect, or equivalent level; education - at minimum a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field required.

• Deep