Senior Software Engineer (Backend)

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the technical systems powering tens of millions of emails and push notifications, helping millions of learners to stay motivated and achieve their goals.
• Develop deep expertise in the roles that tools like Braze, Snowflake, and Census play in tracking the billions of data points that inform which message a given user should receive.
• Bring new features from conception to completion across our entire stack. In a single sprint, you might instrument new analytics events across multiple platforms, architect a new recommendation engine, and trace a bug through our backend and multiple vendors.
• Be mindful of the “big picture” from both a technical perspective and a business one, keeping the Lifecycle pod on track in terms of “building the right thing” and “building the thing right”.
• Exercise a high degree of autonomy and technical authority on a team that trusts you to do what's right for our users but is there to support you when you need it.
• Contribute to a culture of excellence within your pod and the broader engineering team, setting high standards for candor and mutual accountability, and striking a careful balance between velocity and quality.

Who are you?

• You have at least 5 years of professional experience in software engineering with an emphasis on backend and data systems.
• You’re motivated by building robust and maintainable software systems that drive outcomes for users and the business, and you’re happiest when your software goes largely unnoticed (except for the praise from your peers) because of how reliable it is.
• You're capable of working across the stack, and you're most energized when owning feature implementations end-to-end.
• You're capable of working beyond our stack, integrating with third-party systems in thoughtful and intentional way.
• You believe in using the right tool for the job — even when it’s an unfamiliar one, and especially when it's a boring one.
• You enjoy solving technical challenges in a straightforward and maintainable way. You avoid introducing complex, novel, or "clever" solutions. You write code for humans, not for computers.
• Lack of prior experience with a specific technology is never disqualifying, but extensive experience with Django, GraphQL, Snowflake, Census, or Braze would help you hit the ground running.
• You're excited to collaborate closely with talented partners in Product, Data, Design, and Content. You enjoy solving problems with a cross-functional team and sharing knowledge. You want to grow and help the people around you grow.
• You have opinions about the emails and push notifications you receive from other products and companies. There are some that you like and some that you dislike, and you can articulate what makes them different.