Lead Engineer | Full Stack & Backend

About the Role: This is a chance to have a direct hand in building the future of BigFuture, the most widely used college and career planning platform for students. As a Lead Engineer on this team, you are a leader, collaborator, and innovator. You will own the technical direction, working closely with product owners, architects, and designers to translate ideas into solutions. Beyond building products, this role offers you the opportunity to elevate engineering practices, explore emerging technologies like AI, and grow into a trusted technical leader whose work impacts millions of students each year.

What You'll Do

• Design and Development: Design and deliver high-quality software that is scalable, secure, and reusable using modern technologies, proven design patterns, and cloud-native practices. Break down new product capabilities into actionable technical changes.
• Prototyping & Architecture: Design and implement solutions to allow rapid testing of innovative concepts (typically React web apps). Create sharable documentation and maintain strong engineering standards.
• Team Operations: Lead or participate in Agile SCRUM ceremonies. Elevate team performance through code reviews, mentoring peers, and solving complex technical challenges.
• AI Implementation & SME: Serve as an organizational Subject Matter Expert on implementing Generative AI applications. Work with Enterprise Architecture to establish implementation patterns involving GenAI tools.
• Production Support: Assist in resolving production issues with urgency and precision, modeling discipline in adhering to security practices and CI/CD principles.

What You Bring

• 7+ years of professional experience designing, building, testing, and managing scalable web applications in AWS-hosted environments.
• 3+ years of experience building back-end applications using Node.js (with TypeScript).
• Strong knowledge and hands-on experience with front-end and back-end technologies: JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Node.js, Next.js, and APIs.
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redshift, DynamoDB).
• Hands-on experience implementing Generative AI applications (e.g., RAG chatbots, model fine-tuning, or other LLM-powered tools).
• Strong knowledge of AWS services (Lambda, SNS, SQS, S3, Step Functions, IAM, KMS, API Gateway, CloudWatch).
• Experience with asynchronous programming, event-driven messaging patterns, and setting up observability (CloudWatch, X-Ray).
• Bachelor's degree in computer science or related engineering fields preferred.

Benefits

• Hiring range: $168,000 to $183,000 USD/year (adjusted by location).
• A meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive.
• Fair and competitive compensation grounded in qualifications, experience, and market data.