Senior Software Engineer

College Board - Technology - Observability Engineering

100% Remote, working core EST hours

About the Team

The Observability Engineering team at College Board builds solutions to improve the observability of our applications, services, pipelines, and processes, empowering development teams to better serve our customers. We focus on producing cleaner observability signals, processing and presenting product-specific information to facilitate business intelligence, and providing a comprehensive set of well-integrated observability tools. We are committed to delivering an incredible user experience across College Board sites and applications, serving millions of students and thousands of colleges, schools, and districts. Our work not only improves the user experience but also enhances our data analytics and signal selection capabilities, reduces costs, and increases the quality of life for our internal development teams. Our team of five highly productive engineers tackles complex challenges with innovation and speed of delivery, operating almost like a startup. We exploit the capabilities of cloud technologies and adhere to good software development practices. We learn and we teach. We foster creativity and value the merit of ideas.

About the Opportunity

As a Senior Software Engineer on our Observability Engineering team, you are an idea-generator, a catalyst, and a collaborator. You understand cloud software delivery, tools, and processes that empower efficient and resilient delivery that adheres to top-notch development practices. You thrive in an environment with a strong mix of creativity and productivity. You are technologically curious and seek out opportunities to research emerging technologies and trends, standards, and products. Your eagerness and vision enable you to create and learn complex solutions. Your excellent communication and mentoring skills allow you to effectively articulate solutions to the team while bringing them up to speed, enabling all to make healthy contributions.

In this role, you will:

Design & Implementation (70%)

• Design, develop, unit test, implement, and document solutions for our development teams, including full stack applications based on React, TypeScript, and Node.js, while adhering to Agile, CI/CD, and DevOps best practices
• Provide visualizations that quickly gauge the overall end user experience and generate high-quality alerts
• Continuously develop the skills required to work as part of the agile team in a poly-skilled development environment
• Apply subject matter expertise in current technological capabilities such as cloud networking, API integrations, infrastructure resiliency, and cloud design
• Write code to automate the infrastructure lifecycle, create and support internal tools utilizing IaC, and use CLIs
• Partner with domain SMEs (Delivery Team Software Engineers, Security, Infrastructure, Network, Observability and Operations) to analyze the features and capabilities
• Work with technology leaders to understand business objectives and align architectures and cloud product offerings with those objectives
• Contribute to the development and growth of the Cloud Engineering Program through thought leadership, design, and implementation of tools and processes
• Participate in the Enterprise Architecture Review process

Strategy & Communication (20%)

• Implement cloud-first architectural solutions and best practices
• Contribute to technology strategy and planning, conducting research on emerging technologies in support of systems development efforts and recommending technologies that will increase cost effectiveness and systems flexibility
• Participate in agile scrum ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Grooming, Daily SCRUM, Demo, Retro) and contribute to team deliverables
• Participate in peer reviews of software engineering artifacts
• Assist in the identification and resolution of production and production-like issues

Team Coordination (10%)

• Mentor team members by designing and developing training materials to communicate the current and future infrastructure architecture, technology implementations, and software development practices
• Establish a great backup to cover for you during absences; Create and maintain supporting material to ensure they can perform effectively

About You

To qualify for this role, you must have:

• 5+ years of software development experience, including at least 2 years of recent experience with React, TypeScript, and/or Node.js
• Strong knowledge and experience with distributed cloud infrastructure, including AWS resources such as Lambda, SNS, SQS, S3, Step Functions, EC2, ECS, VPC, IAM, CloudWatch, DynamoDB
• Experience building event-driven cloud-based serverless applications, with technical knowledge of cloud computing, DevOps, and microservices
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD framework, immutable infrastructure, automation, orchestration, and other modern DevOps patterns
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills with an ability to present ideas in business-friendly and user-friendly language
• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain good customer working relationships
• Exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving abilities
• Ability to prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment

Additional nice-to-have:

• Experience building API's or other back-end services
• Experience with Grafana or similar data visualization tools

All roles at College Board require:

• Authorization to work in the United States for any employer
• A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work
• Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and a comfort learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively.
• Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal
• A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input.
• A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.
• A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success.

About Our Process

• Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.
• While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.

What We Offer

At College Board, we offer more than just a paycheck-we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We're a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation, grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.

A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation

• The hiring range for this role is $150,000 - $163,000.
• Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at the College Board.
• We aim to make our best offer upfront-rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data.
• We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live.

You'll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it's like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more.

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