Overview
Remote
On Site
Full Time
Skills
PSAT
Affinity Propagation
Technical Support
Scalability
Roadmaps
Design Review
IT Management
Management
Coaching
Systems Design
Performance Tuning
Cloud Computing
Collaboration
DevOps
Software Development
JavaScript
React.js
Python
TypeScript
Amazon Web Services
Amazon SQS
Step-Functions
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon S3
Continuous Integration
Continuous Delivery
Switches
Writing
Mentorship
Communication
Computer Science
Legacy Systems
Open Source
Thought Leadership
Terraform
Orchestration
Kubernetes
Video
Leadership
Recruiting
Insurance
Promotions
Expect
Job Details
Principal Architect
College Board - Technology
Location: Remote
About the Team
The K12 Engineering team at College Board is a high-performing, mission-driven group of 200+ technologists who believe in the power of technology to transform education. Our engineers develop and maintain systems that power the digital delivery of the SAT, PSAT, AP, and CLEP exams to millions of students worldwide. Our portfolio serves K12 schools, districts, state clients, and internal teams. We're focused on building robust, scalable, cloud-native platforms that meet evolving product and user needs. Our team values clean architecture, modern engineering practices, and the ability to move fast with purpose.
About the Opportunity
We're looking for a Principal Architect who is not only a strategic thinker but also a hands-on technical leader. This role demands someone who leads by example through code, diving deep into implementation alongside engineering teams while also setting architectural direction and elevating our systems. You will work across cross-functional teams to design, build, and scale enterprise-grade platforms, with an emphasis on real-world execution-not just whiteboarding.
This role is ideal for someone who enjoys both designing systems and writing code. You'll contribute directly to development work, support engineering teams in solving tough technical problems, and help ensure our software is reliable, scalable, and well-architected for the future.
Your Impact
Strategy & Design Execution (60%)
You are an architect who still loves to code-and does so regularly. You bring technical depth, architectural vision, and a strong desire to help teams ship better software. You're passionate about staying current with the industry, and you know that the best ideas often come from working alongside those in the trenches.
Qualifications
At College Board, you'll be part of a team using technology to create impact at scale. You'll work on meaningful projects with a talented, mission-driven team, in a role that challenges and rewards technical excellence.
About Our Process
College Board offers a competitive benefits and compensation program that attracts top talent looking to make a difference in education. As a self-sustaining non-profit, we believe in compensating employees equitably in relation to each other, their qualifications, their impact, and the relevant market.
The hiring range for a new employee in this position is $194,000 to $212,000College Board differentiates salaries by location so where you live will narrow the portion of this range in which you can expect a salary.
Your salary will be carefully determined based on your location, relevant experience, the external labor market, and the pay of College Board employees in similar roles. College Board strives to provide our best offer up front based on this criteria.
Your salary is only one part of all that College Board offers, including but not limited to:
#LI-DC1
#LI-REMOTE
College Board - Technology
Location: Remote
About the Team
The K12 Engineering team at College Board is a high-performing, mission-driven group of 200+ technologists who believe in the power of technology to transform education. Our engineers develop and maintain systems that power the digital delivery of the SAT, PSAT, AP, and CLEP exams to millions of students worldwide. Our portfolio serves K12 schools, districts, state clients, and internal teams. We're focused on building robust, scalable, cloud-native platforms that meet evolving product and user needs. Our team values clean architecture, modern engineering practices, and the ability to move fast with purpose.
About the Opportunity
We're looking for a Principal Architect who is not only a strategic thinker but also a hands-on technical leader. This role demands someone who leads by example through code, diving deep into implementation alongside engineering teams while also setting architectural direction and elevating our systems. You will work across cross-functional teams to design, build, and scale enterprise-grade platforms, with an emphasis on real-world execution-not just whiteboarding.
This role is ideal for someone who enjoys both designing systems and writing code. You'll contribute directly to development work, support engineering teams in solving tough technical problems, and help ensure our software is reliable, scalable, and well-architected for the future.
Your Impact
Strategy & Design Execution (60%)
- Lead hands-on development of critical systems, services, and tools-writing high-quality, maintainable code to model best practices.
- Set architectural direction across a wide range of domains, ensuring technical solutions meet real-world demands for scalability, performance, and reliability.
- Design and prototype systems and services that become long-term foundations of our platform.
- Create and maintain technical roadmaps in close collaboration with product and engineering leaders, ensuring architecture is aligned with business objectives.
- Evaluate and introduce new tools, frameworks, and platforms to keep our stack modern and efficient.
- Participate in code and design reviews; ensure that high standards are maintained across the board.
- Partner closely with development teams, product managers, and stakeholders to turn ideas into working software.
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor, helping teams balance trade-offs and make forward-looking decisions.
- Provide direct coaching, mentorship, and architectural guidance to engineers of all levels-especially in areas like system design, performance tuning, and cloud-native development.
- Lead technical deep-dives, architecture reviews, and postmortems; identify opportunities for improvement in code, process, and systems.
- Collaborate with DevOps, Security, and Infrastructure teams to ensure cohesive, secure, and scalable platform integration.
You are an architect who still loves to code-and does so regularly. You bring technical depth, architectural vision, and a strong desire to help teams ship better software. You're passionate about staying current with the industry, and you know that the best ideas often come from working alongside those in the trenches.
Qualifications
- 10+ years of hands-on experience in software development, including leading full lifecycle development of complex applications.
- Deep programming expertise in modern languages and frameworks, especially JavaScript (React, Node), Python, and TypeScript.
- Real-world experience building and deploying applications on AWS using services like Lambda, SQS, SNS, Step Functions, DynamoDB, and S3.
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, service-oriented architectures, and event-driven design.
- Proficiency in CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and observability tools.
- Comfortable switching between roles-writing code, reviewing PRs, mentoring engineers, and advising executives.
- Proven track record of influencing across teams, with strong communication skills and a collaborative mindset.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience preferred
- You are authorized to work in the US
- Experience modernizing legacy systems or executing large-scale re-architectures.
- Contributions to open-source projects or thought leadership through blogs, talks, or tech community involvement.
- Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CDK) and container orchestration (e.g., ECS, Kubernetes).
At College Board, you'll be part of a team using technology to create impact at scale. You'll work on meaningful projects with a talented, mission-driven team, in a role that challenges and rewards technical excellence.
About Our Process
- Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled.
- The hiring process will include: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, career and technical experience deep dive conversation, hands-on technical panel interview., a conversation with leadership and reference checks.
College Board offers a competitive benefits and compensation program that attracts top talent looking to make a difference in education. As a self-sustaining non-profit, we believe in compensating employees equitably in relation to each other, their qualifications, their impact, and the relevant market.
The hiring range for a new employee in this position is $194,000 to $212,000College Board differentiates salaries by location so where you live will narrow the portion of this range in which you can expect a salary.
Your salary will be carefully determined based on your location, relevant experience, the external labor market, and the pay of College Board employees in similar roles. College Board strives to provide our best offer up front based on this criteria.
Your salary is only one part of all that College Board offers, including but not limited to:
- A comprehensive package designed to support the well-being of employees and their families and promote education. Our robust benefits package includes health, dental, and vision insurance, generous paid time off, paid parental leave, fertility benefits, pet insurance, tuition assistance, retirement benefits, and more
- Recognition of exceptional performance through annual bonuses, salary growth over time through market increases, and opportunities for merit raises and promotions based on increased scope of responsibility
- A job that matters, a team that cares, and a place to learn, innovate and thrive
#LI-DC1
#LI-REMOTE
Employers have access to artificial intelligence language tools (“AI”) that help generate and enhance job descriptions and AI may have been used to create this description. The position description has been reviewed for accuracy and Dice believes it to correctly reflect the job opportunity.