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 or Boston, MA (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
- People Leadership & Team Development
- 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 - $163,660 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.
Saint Louis Support CenterSkills Required
- 10+ years of professional web development experience with increasing leadership responsibility
- 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 React, Vue, or Angular, including hands-on experience leading framework migrations
- Experience with server-side CSS preprocessors such as LESS or SASS and modern build tooling such as webpack
- Proficiency with package managers such as npm or yarn and code versioning tools such as Git
- Hands-on experience with modern web architecture patterns, component-based design, and state management
- Hands-on experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Codex, or GitHub Copilot
- Experience integrating LLMs or AI APIs such as Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT into application features or workflows
- Experience working within Agile/Scrum delivery models and tooling such as Jira
- 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
- Experience with automated testing strategies and frameworks such as Mocha or Jest
- Experience with server-side JavaScript such as Node.js or Express and microservice integration
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines such as Jenkins or GitHub Actions
- Experience with web performance monitoring and error/crash reporting tools such as Quantum Metric or Dynatrace
- Ability to triage production issues using platform monitoring tools
- Experience integrating REST web services, middleware applications, and data models
What We Do
Panera began in 1987 as St. Louis Bread Company, a humble community bakery founded with a sourdough starter from San Francisco and a dream of putting a loaf of bread in every arm. While our business has expanded well beyond St. Louis since then, that same sourdough starter is still used in our iconic sourdough bread and the craft of baking bread fresh each day remains at the heart of Panera Bread. Each day, our trained bakers fill our bakery shelves with delicious freshly baked cookies, pastries, bagels, and a range of breads from focaccia to classic baguettes. We believe in serving delicious, freshly prepared, clean food made with carefully selected ingredients that we are proud to serve our own families. Our menu, crafted by chefs and bakers, features classic, comforting dishes, each with an intriguing twist. We respect our planet and take measures to lessen our impacts. We believe in treating people with warmth, kindness, and respect, whether it’s a guest in our cafe or one of our associates. And we believe in helping our local communities, especially in times of need. We’re also focused on improving quality and convenience. With investments in technology and operations, we offer omni-channel access to your Panera favorites – like mobile ordering, catering, and Rapid Pick-Up® for to-go orders, Curbside pick-up and delivery – all designed to make things easier for our guests. Today, Panera operates as both Panera Bread® or Saint Louis Bread Co St. Louis Bread Company in 48 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. Panera Bread is privately held by JAB Holding Company. Panera Bread is part of Panera Brands, one of the largest fast-casual restaurant platforms in the U.S., comprised of Panera Bread®, Caribou Coffee® and Einstein Bros.® Bagels.
