Sr Staff Software Engineer

Recognized as the No. 1 site trusted by real estate professionals, Realtor.com® has been at the forefront of online real estate for over 25 years, connecting buyers, sellers, and renters with trusted insights and expert guidance to find their perfect home. Through its robust suite of tools, Realtor.com® not only makes a significant impact on the real estate industry at large, but for consumers, navigating the biggest purchase they will make in their life, by providing a user experience that is easy to use, easy to understand, and most of all, easy to make decisions.

Join us on our mission to empower more people to find their way home by breaking barriers to entry, making the right connections, and building confidence through expert guidance.

Realtor.com is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to provide technical leadership for the Consumer Services backend platform as it consolidates into the Services & API Gateways platform. This hands‑on role will lead architecture and execution across the federated graph and API platform, subgraph transition work, revenue‑critical lead‑submission services, and shared backend libraries.

The ideal candidate is a hands‑on backend architect who can balance design and implementation with cross‑team technical leadership, improve operational resilience, and help domain teams safely adopt the shared graph, gateway, governance, and paved‑road platform.

What you will do:

• Own the technical direction for the relevant subgraphs during the transition, including the platform responsibilities that remain in the consolidated gateway/federation stack.
• Lead Hestia and Pantheon consolidation, federated-graph architecture, API/BFF standards, service boundaries, schema evolution, caching, circuit breakers, SLOs, and observability.
• Design and deliver reliable, scalable Node.js and TypeScript services using GraphQL, Apollo Federation, AWS, Kubernetes/EKS, and infrastructure‑as‑code practices.
• Protect the revenue‑critical lead‑submission path while executing the planned transition of inquiry business logic to Connections and the decomposition of subgraph business logic to the appropriate domain teams.
• Establish federation governance and reference implementations for domain teams, including self‑service onboarding, composition checks, breaking‑change checks, schema standards, health scorecards, and operational readiness across 32+ subgraphs.
• Partner with Microservices and platform teams, Connections, Buyer, Seller, Client, domain teams, Pantheon, GLA, Quality Enablement, and other stakeholders to resolve dependencies and deliver the consolidation safely.
• Drive knowledge resilience through documentation, architecture reviews, cross‑training, runbooks, and development of primary and secondary owners for critical services.
• Improve backend quality through API‑layer integration testing, contract testing, performance budgets, CI/CD quality gates, and pragmatic reduction of fragile end‑to‑end coverage.
• Lead production readiness reviews, incident response, post‑incident improvements, and operational standards for the shared consumer API and graph platform.
• Mentor engineers and contractors through technical direction, design reviews, pairing, and clear engineering guidance.

What you bring:

• Extensive experience designing and operating production backend systems and API platforms at scale.
• Deep proficiency in Node.js and TypeScript, with strong experience building APIs and services with GraphQL and Apollo Federation.
• Experience with distributed systems, event‑driven or asynchronous workflows, caching, resiliency patterns, observability, and incident management.
• Strong AWS and Kubernetes/EKS experience, including deployment, monitoring, and production operations.
• Demonstrated ability to lead architecture across multiple teams without relying solely on formal authority.
• Experience defining service boundaries, schemas, APIs, technical standards, and migration strategies in complex platforms.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical tradeoffs to engineering and product stakeholders.
• A track record of mentoring engineers and creating systems that reduce single points of failure.
• Experience with GraphQL federation, schema governance, composition pipelines, and federated platform architecture.
• Experience with API gateways, routing, WAF integration, and high‑volume consumer traffic.
• Familiarity with Redis, DynamoDB, S3, ArgoCD, CI/CD automation, and AWS security practices.
• Experience modernizing monoliths or shared platforms into domain‑aligned services.
• Experience building self‑service developer platforms, paved roads, or quality‑enablement practices.

Success in the first 12 months:

• The relevant subgraphs have clear transition plans, documented architecture, operational runbooks, and trained secondary responders.
• Hestia and Pantheon consolidation progresses against the FY27 roadmap, with clear graph, gateway, and subgraph boundaries.
• Transitions of subgraph business capabilities to domain teams are executed safely, with knowledge transfer and receiving‑team readiness.
• Federation governance, schema checks, reference implementations, and self‑service onboarding are usable by domain teams across the shared graph.
• Lead‑submission reliability, incident response, observability, and CI/CD quality practices measurably improve.
• The platform no longer depends on a single deep owner for critical Consumer Services capabilities.

How We Work:

We balance creativity and innovation on a foundation of in‑person collaboration. For most roles, our employees work three or more days in our offices, where they have the opportunity to collaborate in‑person, adding richness to our culture and knitting us closer together.

How We Reward You:

Realtor.com is committed to investing in the health and wellbeing of our employees and their families. Our benefits programs include, but are not limited to:

• Inclusive and Competitive medical, Rx, dental, and vision coverage
• Family forming benefits
• 13 Paid Holidays
• Flexible Time Off
• 8 hours of paid Volunteer Time off
• Immediate eligibility into Company 401(k) plan with 3.5% company match
• Tuition Reimbursement program for degreed and non‑degreed programs
• 1:1 personalized Financial Planning Sessions
• Student Debt Retirement Savings Match program
• Free snacks and refreshments in each office location

Do the best work of your life at Realtor.com®

Here, you’ll partner with a diverse team of experts as you use leading‑edge tech to empower everyone to meet a crucial goal: finding their way home. And you’ll find your way home too. At Realtor.com®, you’ll bring your full self to work as you innovate with speed, serve our consumers, and champion your teammates. In return, we’ll provide you with a warm, welcoming, and inclusive culture; intellectual challenges; and the development opportunities you need to grow.

Diversity is important to us, therefore, Realtor.com® is an Equal Opportunity Employer regardless of age, color, national origin, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital status, status as a disabled veteran and/or veteran of the Vietnam Era or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, Realtor.com® will provide reasonable accommodations for otherwise qualified disabled individuals.