Principal Solutions Architect

About the Role

We design and ship headless commerce frontends for major retail brands — high-traffic storefronts where a 100ms regression in Largest Contentful Paint directly impacts conversion rates and revenue. You'll own the technical direction for one of our distributed delivery teams: designing front-end architectures, breaking epics into implementable stories, establishing the coding standards that keep a multi-team codebase coherent, and resolving ambiguity before it reaches a sprint. You'll work directly with clients during discovery and sprint planning, partner with leads and senior engineers through design reviews and ADRs, and collaborate async-first across time zones. The path leads to Principal Architecture with client-facing strategic influence across our commerce practice.

Responsibilities

• Design and own front-end architectures using Next.js, React, and TypeScript for enterprise commerce implementations
• Break epics into implementable stories with clear acceptance criteria, identifying technical dependencies and estimating complexity
• Lead architectural decisions on rendering strategies, state management, caching, and performance optimization — and document them in ADRs
• Drive Core Web Vitals performance across your delivery team, establishing standards engineers build against in every PR
• Define coding standards and project conventions in formats that enable both engineers and AI agents to execute reliably
• Collaborate with clients during discovery to translate business needs into scalable, pragmatic architecture roadmaps
• Resolve technical ambiguity before sprint — unblocking engineers and escalating architectural drift when design intent diverges from implementation

Qualifications

• Proven architectural experience designing front-end systems and leading distributed engineering teams (3+ people)
• Deep proficiency in Next.js (App Router, React Server Components), React, TypeScript, and modern web architecture — SSR strategies, edge computing, serverless patterns
• Performance engineering expertise: Core Web Vitals optimization, CDN configuration, caching strategies, and a track record of shipping measurable improvements
• Strong written and verbal English — you'll align technical work with client expectations, explain architectural tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders, and define the conventions engineers build against
• Evidence of designing work for agentic operation — not just personal AI tool usage, but structuring how teams work with agents: writing specs agents can execute, maintaining documentation as context infrastructure, and decomposing features so that agent-generated output is reviewable and reliable

Required Skills

• Familiarity with commerce platforms (Shopify Storefront API, SFCC Composable Storefront, Big Commerce)
• Experience with headless CMS platforms (Contentful, Sanity, Contentstack)

Preferred Skills

• Tools: React, Next.js, TypeScript
• Shopify Plus / Salesforce Commerce Cloud / Big Commerce / SCAYLE
• Vercel, CI/CD pipelines
• Cursor and/or Claude Code, ChatGPT
• Jest, Cypress, Playwright
• Slack, Jira, Confluence

What We Offer

• Startup Environment: A lean, fast-moving team where ownership, autonomy, and accountability are expected.
• High-Impact Work: Meaningful, hands-on work with direct visibility into outcomes and production impact.
• Top-Tier Clients: Opportunities to work with well-known, global brands and complex, real-world challenges.
• Competitive Compensation & Benefits: Market-aligned pay, comprehensive benefits, and bonus structures where applicable.
• Unlimited PTO: Flexible time off built on trust, ownership, and clear expectations.
• 100% Remote Work: Work from anywhere with a distributed, async-first team.
• Growth & Development: Room to expand scope, build expertise, and grow alongside the company.
• AI: Premium AI tooling licenses (Cursor and/or Claude Code) for your entire team, with organizational support for building AI-first delivery practices.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Space Dinosaurs is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. Employment decisions are based on job-related qualifications and business needs.