Lead Engineer, Full Stack (US)

Responsibilities

• The Machine is the agentic operating system for marketing, built by Code and Theory. It plugs into the tools marketing teams use and turns disconnected workflows into a single intelligent system, connecting brand strategy, creative production, and media performance. The Machine helps power agencies across Stagwell's network and world-leading brands.
• Own the technical direction for features and systems across the full stack, setting standards for scalability, correctness, and maintainability that the team builds against
• Build and maintain modern front-end applications using React and Next.js, focusing on correctness, for long term maintainability, and integration with back-end services
• Own complex API integrations end to end, setting the contracts, validation standards, and reliability bar for how internal and external systems communicate

Build maintainable and well-structured application logic

• Lead cross-disciplinary alignment on architecture, data flow, and technical trade-offs
• Lead technical discussions, architectural reviews, and problem-solving sessions, shaping how the team approaches hard engineering decisions
• Set the bar for code quality, and define and enforce standards for clean, maintainable, well-documented code across the team
• Mentor and develop engineers, actively growing junior talent through code review, knowledge-sharing, and modeling strong engineering practices
• Help define the vanguard for emerging technologies and frameworks, applying them to projects quickly and effectively to improve the health of our systems over time

Requirements

• Ability to build independently to figure out how something works for the user
• Self-direction, curiosity, and comfort with ambiguity
• Bias toward action
• Infrastructure and infrastructure as code (GCP, AWS, or Azure; Terraform, Pulumi, or similar; Kubernetes and networking principles)

Preferred

• Experience in agency, consultancy, or enterprise SaaS organizations

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

Experience in an IDE or harness of choice

Backend in Python, Node.js, or Go

• SQL and NoSQL databases (relational schema design and vector embeddings for AI search)
• Event-driven systems such as SQS, SNS, Kafka, or RabbitMQ
• Frontend in React and modern CSS such as Tailwind

CI/CD with GitHub Actions, CircleCI, or Jenkins

• An understanding of build, bundling, imaging, and publishing pipelines
• Familiarity with AI-native development tools like Cursor, Devin, or Claude Code
• Experience with agentic frameworks and infrastructure such as Google ADK, LiteLLM, LangChain, or similar

ABOUT US

Born in 2001, Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that sits at the center of creativity and technology. We pride ourselves on not only solving consumer and business problems, but also helping to establish new capabilities for our clients. With a global client roster of Fortune 100s and start-ups alike, we crave the hardest problems to solve. We have teams distributed across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. The Code and Theory global network of agencies is growing and includes Kettle, Instrument, Left Field Labs, Create Group, Current, and TrueLogic.

Striving never to be pigeonholed, we work across every major category: from tech to CPG, financial services to travel & hospitality, government and education to media and publishing. We value the collaboration with our client partners, including but not limited to Adidas, Amazon, Con Edison, Diageo, EY, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lenovo, Marriott, Mars, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, and TikTok.

The Code and Theory network is comprised of nearly 2,000 people with 50% engineers and 50% creative talent. We're always on the lookout for smart, driven, and forward-thinking people to join our team.

The compensation range for this role is $140,000 to $180,000 and spans multiple levels. We're open to hiring at the level that best matches the right candidate's experience. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, budget, and location.