Sr. Manager, Software Engineer - Web

Panera Bread; Saint Louis (LA); On-site; USD 127,000 - 153,000; Full time

Job summary

Panera in Saint Louis, MO, offers a senior leadership role overseeing a web engineering team. The position emphasizes ownership of performance, architecture, and delivery for customer-facing web apps, while guiding a team of 5+ developers and collaborating with product, design, and platform groups.

You will drive adoption of best practices, mentor engineers, and steer AI-assisted development initiatives in a hybrid work setting. Strong leadership and technical depth are required.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of web development with leadership responsibility.
• Proven track record leading teams of 5+ developers.
• Strong foundation in scalable software design and architecture.
• Deep proficiency in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and TypeScript.
• Experience with React or similar framework and migrations.
• Experience with CSS preprocessors and modern build tooling.
• Proficiency with npm/yarn and Git.
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools and AI APIs.
• Experience in Agile/Scrum delivery and Jira.
• Collaborates across product, design and platform teams.
• Experience building accessible and SEO-friendly web apps.

Responsibilities

• Accountable for the performance, delivery, and technical health of the web engineering team.
• Translates goals into team-level execution plans with measurable outcomes.
• Owns hiring, onboarding, coaching, and career progression.
• Provides architectural guidance for customer-facing web applications.
• Guides design discussions, trade-offs, and solution decisions.
• Ensures adoption of web engineering best practices and standards.
• Evaluates new tools and AI-assisted development approaches.
• Delivers high-quality web initiatives in a predictable manner.

Skills

Leadership experience

HTML5

CSS3

JavaScript

TypeScript

React

Vue

Angular

Web accessibility

SEO basics

AI-assisted development

Agile/Scrum

Architecture & design

Team mentorship

Tools

Jira

Webpack

Git

Node.js

Express

Claude Code

GitHub Copilot

Job description

Sr. Manager, Software Engineer - Web

Job Summary

As a Senior Manager, Web Developer at Panera you have the opportunity of joining a company with several digital ecommerce channels, a large brick and mortar infrastructure, endless problems to solve and optimize, but organized in such a way that every person can feel their impact to both their immediate team and the company. You will be building new and exciting features, working with 3rd party vendors, both large and small, and working with a first-class team of developers, product managers, and designers.

Additionally, the senior manager position can make an impact on the web development team by representing them in highly technical meetings, translating requirements into technical documents, and leading the team.

Location: St. Louis, MO (hybrid)

Roles and Responsibilities

The primary responsibilities of this job include, but are not limited to:

• Role Scope & Accountability
  • Accountable for the performance, delivery, and technical health of the web engineering team
  • Operates with broad autonomy within defined product and platform strategy
  • Translates organizational goals into team-level execution plans and measurable outcomes
  • Acts as a people leader first, while remaining deeply fluent in modern web engineering practices
• Core Responsibilities
  • People Leadership & Team Development
    • Owns the overall effectiveness, engagement, and growth of a web engineering team of 5+ developers
    • Leads and develops engineers across varying experience levels, including senior ICs
    • Sets clear expectations for performance, behaviors, and engineering standards
    • Owns hiring outcomes, including pipeline strategy, interview design, and final talent recommendations
    • Accountable for onboarding, coaching, performance feedback, and career progression
  • Technical Ownership & Direction
    • Provides technical direction and architectural guidance for Panera's customer-facing web applications
    • Facilitates and guides technical design discussions, trade-off analyses, and solution decisions
    • Ensures consistent adoption of web engineering best practices, architecture patterns, and coding standards
    • Partners with enterprise and platform architects to ensure web solutions align with broader system strategy
    • Evaluates new tools, frameworks, and technologies and determines practical adoption paths for the team
    • Champions responsible adoption of AI-assisted development tools and LLM/AI API integration across the team
    • Hands-on experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot) to improve engineering productivity
      Experience integrating LLMs or AI APIs (e.g., Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) into application features or workflows
  • Delivery & Execution Management
    • Accountable for predictable, high-quality delivery of web initiatives
    • Partners with Product and Design leaders to translate business objectives into executable feature plans
    • Manages scope, sequencing, and dependencies; proposes MVP or phased approaches to maximize value delivery
    • Balances feature development with technical investment and platform stability
    • Escalates delivery risks, trade-offs, and timeline impacts with clarity and data

Job Requirements

• Required Qualifications
  • 10+ years of professional Web development experience with increasing leadership responsibility
  • Proven experience leading engineering teams of 5+ developers and owning delivery outcomes
  • Strong foundation in scalable, maintainable software design and architecture
  • Deep proficiency in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and TypeScript
  • Deep proficiency in at least one modern JavaScript SPA framework (React, Vue, or Angular), with hands-on experience leading framework migrations (e.g., Vue to React)
  • Experience with server-side CSS preprocessors (e.g., LESS, SASS) and modern build tooling (e.g., webpack)
  • Proficiency with package managers (e.g., npm, yarn) and code versioning tools (e.g., Git)
  • Hands-on experience with modern web architecture patterns, component-based design, and state management
  • Hands-on experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot) to improve engineering productivity
  • Experience integrating LLMs or AI APIs (e.g., Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) into application features or workflows
  • Experience working within Agile/Scrum delivery models and tooling (e.g., Jira)
  • Demonstrated ability to collaborate across product, design, and platform teams
  • Experience building or maintaining ADA-compliant, accessible web applications
  • Familiarity with SEO principles and cross-browser compatibility

• Preferred Qualifications
  • Experience with automated testing strategies and frameworks (e.g., Mocha, Jest)
  • Experience with server-side JavaScript (e.g., Node.js, Express) and microservice integration
  • Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions)
  • Experience with web performance monitoring and error/crash reporting tools (e.g., Quantum Metric, Dynatrace)
  • Ability to triage production issues effectively using platform monitoring tools.
  • Experience integrating with REST web services, middleware applications, and data models

• Leadership Characteristics
  • Demonstrates a strong sense of ownership and accountability
  • Balances technical judgment with people leadership
  • Proactively identifies opportunities for continuous improvement
  • Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-visibility environment
  • Trusted partner to Product and Business stakeholder

Equal Opportunity Employer: Disabled/Veterans

Competitive Pay $127,461 - $152,953 annually

The actual pay offered will be determined by multiple factors, including but not limited to the candidate's relevant experience, job-related knowledge, skills, and geographical location. Individual compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.

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