Senior Software Engineer, Backend

Role Overview

• Design, build, and scale the systems that power student–university interactions.
• Own critical APIs and services that enable real-time data, automation, and integrations.
• Drive improvements in reliability, performance, and security across distributed systems.
• Automate onboarding and workflows by building ingestion jobs and database-driven configurations.
• Partner with product, frontend, and data teams to design and deliver impactful features.
• Work closely with Solutions Engineering and Customer Success to ensure seamless school deployments.
• Contribute to system design discussions, technical decision-making, and mentorship within the team.
• Champion best practices in testing, code quality, and CI/CD automation.
• Proactively identify bottlenecks and scale systems to handle high-volume data and transactions.
• Stay ahead of emerging frameworks, cloud technologies, and AI-driven tools to keep us innovative.

Requirements

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience — ideally in SaaS, EdTech, or high-growth startup environments.
• Strong in Node.js (our core), but fluent enough to learn and adapt — whether that’s TypeScript/Express, Python/FastAPI, or other modern stacks.
• Built and scaled RESTful APIs (GraphQL a bonus) and know how to keep them clean, secure, and fast.
• Worked across databases (Postgres, Redis, or NoSQL) and can design for scale, reliability, and performance.
• Comfortable in cloud-native environments (GCP preferred; AWS/Azure fine too) and can navigate Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform without blinking.
• Care about automation and pipelines — cutting manual steps by building config-driven systems, ETL, and ingestion workflows.
• Build with a security-first mindset — you know your way around OAuth2/OIDC, role
• and policy-based auth, and compliance frameworks (SOC2, FERPA).
• Touched CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and observability tools (Datadog, OpenTelemetry, Sentry) — and you know they’re not “nice to have,” they’re table stakes.
• Thrive on architecting distributed systems and microservices that balance complexity with simplicity.
• Bonus points if you’ve played with AI/ML integration (OpenAI, Hugging Face, vector search like FAISS/pgvector) or have a knack for developer productivity hacks using AI tools.
• Self-starter who thrives in fast-moving, ambiguous environments, and loves the challenge of building 0→1.
• Collaborator at heart — sharing knowledge, giving feedback, and celebrating wins with the team.

Tech Stack

• AWS
• Azure
• Cloud
• Distributed Systems
• Docker
• ETL
• Google Cloud Platform
• GraphQL
• JavaScript
• Kubernetes
• Microservices
• Node.js
• NoSQL
• Postgres
• Python
• Redis
• Terraform
• TypeScript

Benefits

• We’re solving a high-stakes, high-impact problem — helping institutions remove friction and students unlock brighter futures
• You’ll have real ownership in a high-velocity, early-stage environment with direct influence across the company
• You’ll help shape the future of a category-defining company, working alongside smart, ambitious, mission-first operators
• You’ll do the most meaningful work of your career, leaving a lasting legacy in how higher education serves students