Senior Lead Software Engineer (Shopify)

We are looking for a Senior Lead Software Engineer to step into the technical core of our agency. This is not a heads-down coding role. You will be the technical backbone of our client work, the mentor junior developers turn to when they are stuck, and the engineer who joins discovery calls to help scope and win new business.

You will also lead our push to integrate AI agents and automated workflows into how we build, and spread that knowledge across the entire team.

The bigger picture: we are building toward a version of Cobalt where we work with larger clients, ship higher quality work, and run tighter processes that do not require heroic hours from anyone on the team. We want AI doing the heavy lifting where it can, everything working as it should, and clients who are genuinely happy. The person in this role will have a direct hand in getting us there.

What You Will Do

Technical Leadership

• Architect and build custom Shopify solutions across the full stack: storefront, admin, backend infrastructure, and custom apps
• Recommend the right APIs, apps, and integrations for each client
• Build and maintain staging environments, deployment pipelines, and CI/CD workflows
• Develop custom A/B tests and set up data warehouses, ETL pipelines, and failure logging

Client Partnership

• Own the technical relationship with clients: troubleshoot independently on calls and present weekly work summaries
• Join discovery calls alongside agency leadership to scope projects and advise on technical feasibility
• Recommend client-facing tools and internal tooling that makes our delivery faster

Team Development

• Train and mentor a team of junior developers. Unblock them quickly and raise their technical floor over time
• Design and deploy AI-powered workflows that automate repetitive client work (e.g., request in context, agent processes, code deployed to staging, pull request submitted)
• Build and maintain a shared knowledge base that keeps the entire team aligned
• Document and teach AI workflow methodology to every developer on the team

What We Are Looking For

Our work spans design and development across a wide range of client needs. Shopify expertise is non-negotiable for this role, but you should be comfortable working beyond it.

Shopify (Expert Level Required)

• All major Shopify APIs: Storefront, Admin, Customer Accounts, Checkout Extensions, and the full suite of Function APIs
• Custom app development via Shopify CLI using the current access token approach (post-Jan 2026, not the legacy method)
• Webhooks: registering, handling, and chaining with Storefront and Admin API actions
• Theme development: Liquid, JavaScript, staging environments, standard deployment workflows
• Hydrogen and headless storefront builds
• Shopify Admin configuration: taxes, payments, shipping, inventory, metafields, metaobjects, B2B catalogs, Shopify Markets
• Customer Events and Web Pixels API: custom pixels, app pixels, consent management
• UI component libraries: Polaris, Preact, React

Full Stack Engineering

• JavaScript, TypeScript, Next.js, Node, React, Express
• Backend infrastructure: Postgres, Vercel, Heroku, Cloudflare, GCP
• CI/CD pipelines, staging and deployment workflows
• Custom A/B testing (we use Intelligems; CRO knowledge is a bonus)

AI and Automation

• Building and orchestrating AI agents using the Anthropic API (Claude strongly preferred)
• MCP servers, Claude Code, and simultaneous agent sessions
• Automating client delivery pipelines: from Slack or Asana request to staged deployment and pull request
• Defining agent instructions via Markdown files and maintaining shared knowledge bases
• Ability to document and teach these workflows to the broader engineering team

Data Engineering

• Data architecture and cleansing
• Setting up data warehouses and ETL pipelines
• Failure logging and monitoring for production reliability, * What experience do you have managing junior developers and communicating progress to stakeholders?
• A big part of this role is working daily with our CEO and participating in (and sometimes leading) client calls. How do you approach explaining technical hurdles to non-technical people, and are you comfortable being the 'face' of the tech team in high-stakes meetings?

Do you have experience in Shopify?

Pulled from the full job description

• Paid time off
• Profit sharing, * Autonomous. You manage your own workload, track what you have shipped, and present it clearly to clients each week.
• Client-facing. You are comfortable owning calls solo, sharing your screen to walk clients through solutions, and explaining technical decisions clearly to a non-technical audience.
• Communicative. You respond quickly during business hours. Slack and Asana are your home base.
• Available when it counts. Site launches and the Black Friday / Cyber Monday period require additional availability. BFCM is the highest-stakes two weeks of the year for our clients, and we treat it that way as a team.
• Solutions-oriented. You think in solutions, not problems. You can speak to how you would solve a technical challenge even during a sales discovery call.
• Decisive. Junior developers should never be stuck waiting long for an answer. You unblock people fast.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base Salary: $120,000 - $140,000, depending on experience
• Profit Sharing: Annual profit sharing available. Eligible to begin immediately.
• Equity: Equity compensation available after one year of employment.
• Remote-first: Work from wherever you do your best work. We are based in Austin, TX and operate on Central Time, so availability during CT business hours is expected.
• No traditional benefits package: This role does not include health insurance or similar benefits. The compensation structure is designed to reflect that., Pay: $120,000.00 - $140,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Paid time off

Cobalt Commerce is a full-service ecommerce development and design agency. Shopify is our specialty, but we cover the full range of what modern brands need to grow online. We partner with our clients to build digital experiences that convert, using a data-driven approach and a relentless focus on performance. We embed ourselves in our clients' teams: in their Slack channels, on their weekly calls, in their product roadmaps. We are a partner, not a vendor.