Performance Engineer- Backend Full Time

About This Opportunity

Automattic is looking for a Backend Performance Engineer to help optimize the performance of its large-scale backend systems powering products like WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, Jetpack, and more.

This is a highly technical, deep-dive engineering role focused on identifying and eliminating performance bottlenecks across PHP applications, databases, and caching systems- ensuring millions of requests are served as efficiently as possible at global scale.

Company: Automattic
Accepting Applicants From: Remote from Anywhere

View the full job description and apply directly with Automattic
*Please apply if you genuinely think you meet the requirements.*

What You Will Do

• Profile and optimize PHP backend performance
• Analyze and improve MySQL/MariaDB query performance
• Optimize caching systems (e.g., Memcached) across products
• Identify and eliminate backend bottlenecks impacting scale and speed
• Build performance monitoring, dashboards, and observability tools
• Detect and prevent performance regressions before production impact
• Collaborate with engineers on performance-aware architecture and code
• Review code with a focus on efficiency and scalability
• Define and document backend performance best practices
• Investigate and resolve real-world production performance issues

Requirements

• Strong hands-on PHP performance engineering experience
• Deep understanding of backend profiling, memory, and execution optimization
• Experience with caching strategies (Memcached or similar)
• Experience working on high-scale systems with real production traffic
• Ability to instrument systems and validate performance improvements with data
• Strong analytical mindset (measure, don’t guess)
• Excellent written communication skills (async-first environment)
• Self-directed and able to prioritize high-impact work independently
• Bonus points if
  Experience with WordPress and WooCommerce at scale

What You Get

• $70,000 – $170,000
• Fully remote globally

Tagged as: Backend Engineer, Caching, Distributed Systems, Memcached, MySQL, Performance Engineering, PHP, Systems Engineering, WooCommerce, wordpress