Software Engineer

Summary

Axios is a growth-focused media company dedicated to helping people get smarter, faster, on what matters. The Full Stack Software Engineer will build and scale the interfaces, services, APIs, and data flows powering Axios’ audience-facing products and publishing tools, using AI-native development practices. The role also focuses on product collaboration, system reliability, security, quality, and technical improvement.

Responsibilities

• End-to-end feature development: Own features across the frontend, APIs, business logic, data layer, testing, and production systems. Turn product problems into clear technical plans and reviewable units of work, using AI agents thoughtfully across research, prototyping, implementation, testing, refactoring, and documentation
• Frontend development: Create accessible, responsive, and maintainable interfaces using JavaScript or TypeScript, React, and modern web frameworks such as Next.js
• Backend and API development: Build production services and APIs that support Axios’ products and publishing workflows, and create clear contracts that can be understood and used reliably by people, applications, and AI-powered tools
• AI-enabled product development: Identify opportunities where models, agents, retrieval, or intelligent automation can create meaningful value for readers or internal teams. Build those capabilities with clear user controls, measurable behavior, appropriate guardrails, and an understanding of when conventional software is the better solution
• Quality and reliability: Write automated tests, improve performance, and contribute to logging, metrics, tracing, security, and operational reliability
• Collaboration: Partner with product, design, quality engineering, and other developers to clarify requirements, explain tradeoffs, and deliver effectively. Participate in code reviews, pairing, onboarding, and mentorship
• Product and technical improvement: Understand how technical work supports readers, editorial workflows, and business goals.Improve existing systems through thoughtful refactoring, sound technical decisions, and practical experimentation with emerging engineering approaches

Skills

• 2-5+ years of professional software development experience, with production experience in frontend, backend, or full-stack development and the ability to contribute across the stack
• Hands-on experience using agentic coding tools—such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or comparable tools—to complete meaningful, multi-step software work, rather than only generating snippets or using autocomplete
• Ability to write clear specifications and acceptance criteria, provide relevant context, break work into appropriately scoped tasks, decide what to delegate, and guide an agent when its initial approach is incomplete or incorrect
• Ability to review AI-generated code critically, validate assumptions against the actual system, identify security and maintainability risks, and recognize when an agent-produced solution is plausible but wrong
• Experience building production interfaces with JavaScript or TypeScript and React
• Experience building production services and APIs. Our backend systems primarily use Go and Python, and you should be comfortable working in or learning either language
• Experience with relational databases, SQL, schema design, transactions, and migrations
• Experience with unit and integration testing, accessibility, input validation, authentication, authorization, and common web security practices
• Ability to own scoped work, make sound tradeoffs, navigate ambiguity, and connect technical decisions to product and business goals
• Ability to explain technical decisions, risks, blockers, and tradeoffs clearly to engineering and cross-functional partners
• Curiosity about rapidly changing models, tools, and development practices, paired with an evidence-based approach to evaluating them
• Experience building production AI-enabled features using model APIs, structured outputs, tool or function calling, retrieval, or agent workflows
• Experience evaluating and operating AI-enabled systems through regression tests, evaluation harnesses, tracing, feedback loops, model or prompt versioning, cost and latency monitoring, or human-review paths
• Experience extending AI development environments through MCP servers, agent tools, repository instructions, reusable skills or plugins, custom workflows, or automated code review
• Production experience with Go or Python
• Experience with gRPC, Protocol Buffers, generated clients, or service-oriented architectures
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, containers, orchestration, or CI/CD
• Experience with caching, background jobs, queues, or asynchronous processing
• Experience with CMS, publishing, media, subscription, search, or other consumer-facing products
• Experience operating production systems with observability, performance optimization or benchmarking, or accessibility testing
• Preferably with Next.js or a comparable modern framework

Qualifications

Must Haves

• 2-5+ years of professional software development experience, with production experience in frontend, backend, or full-stack development and the ability to contribute across the stack
• Hands-on experience using agentic coding tools—such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or comparable tools—to complete meaningful, multi-step software work, rather than only generating snippets or using autocomplete
• Ability to write clear specifications and acceptance criteria, provide relevant context, break work into appropriately scoped tasks, decide what to delegate, and guide an agent when its initial approach is incomplete or incorrect
• Ability to review AI-generated code critically, validate assumptions against the actual system, identify security and maintainability risks, and recognize when an agent-produced solution is plausible but wrong
• Experience building production interfaces with JavaScript or TypeScript and React
• Experience building production services and APIs. Our backend systems primarily use Go and Python, and you should be comfortable working in or learning either language
• Experience with relational databases, SQL, schema design, transactions, and migrations
• Experience with unit and integration testing, accessibility, input validation, authentication, authorization, and common web security practices
• Ability to own scoped work, make sound tradeoffs, navigate ambiguity, and connect technical decisions to product and business goals
• Ability to explain technical decisions, risks, blockers, and tradeoffs clearly to engineering and cross-functional partners
• Curiosity about rapidly changing models, tools, and development practices, paired with an evidence-based approach to evaluating them
• Experience building production AI-enabled features using model APIs, structured outputs, tool or function calling, retrieval, or agent workflows
• Experience evaluating and operating AI-enabled systems through regression tests, evaluation harnesses, tracing, feedback loops, model or prompt versioning, cost and latency monitoring, or human-review paths
• Experience extending AI development environments through MCP servers, agent tools, repository instructions, reusable skills or plugins, custom workflows, or automated code review
• Production experience with Go or Python
• Experience with gRPC, Protocol Buffers, generated clients, or service-oriented architectures
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, containers, orchestration, or CI/CD
• Experience with caching, background jobs, queues, or asynchronous processing
• Experience with CMS, publishing, media, subscription, search, or other consumer-facing products
• Experience operating production systems with observability, performance optimization or benchmarking, or accessibility testing

Nice to Haves

• preferably with Next.js or a comparable modern framework

Benefits

• 401(k) with employer match
• Robust PPO and High Deductible health insurance options on the Blue Cross Blue Shield network
• Employer Health Savings Account (HSA) contribution for the high deductible health plan option
• Dental and vision coverage
• Primary caregiver 12-week paid leave
• Birth-givers will have an additional 6-8 weeks depending on type of delivery, for a total of 18-20 weeks continuous leave
• Generous vacation policy, plus holidays
• One mental health day per quarter
• Annual learning and development stipend
• $100 monthly work-from-home stipend
• Tele-mental health services through Headspace
• OneMedical membership, including tele-health services
• Personal health advocacy resources through HealthAdvocate
• Inclusive fertility, hormonal health and family forming benefits through Carrot Fertility
• Access to the Axios “Family Fund”, which was created to allow employees to request financial support when facing financial hardship or emergencies
• Increased work flexibility for parents and caretakers
• Virtual company-sponsored social events
• A strong and positive work environment
• A commitment to an open, inclusive, and diverse work culture