College Board

College Board

Lead Backend Engineer

Remote - USA · Staff+ · Full-time

Sponsorship not specified$168k-$183kDetected 2 days ago
JavaScriptTypeScriptPythonReactNext.jsNode.jsCode ReviewNoSQLPostgreSQLMySQLDynamoDBRedshiftAWSCI/CDLLMsRAGAccessibilityProduct ManagementAgileLeadershipCommunicationCollaborationProblem SolvingMentoring

About the role

  • BigFuture is committed to empowering all students to take the right first step after high school, reaching over 7 million students each year as the leading free resource for college, scholarship, and career exploration.
  • We work in an agile, collaborative environment that values creativity, curiosity, and problem-solving, delivering clean and sustainable solutions that scale to meet the needs of millions while reducing technical debt.
  • We thrive on learning from each other, raising risks early, and finding simplicity in complexity, all while celebrating shared successes and growth.

Responsibilities

  • Design and deliver high-quality software that is scalable, secure, and reusable- leveraging modern technologies, proven design patterns, and cloud-native practices to power BigFuture's core tools.
  • Collaborate with product owners, architects, and stakeholders to uphold the highest engineering standards and translate big ideas into impactful, student-facing solutions.
  • Design and implement solutions to allow rapid testing of innovative concepts using the latest technologies, typically React web apps
  • Create sharable documentation, both technical and non-technical
  • Engineers on our team not only code, but also mentor, document, and partner with product and design to shape solutions and influence the direction of our work.
  • You Own the technical direction: Define, document, and communicate the architecture and design pattern s for the system or product area.
  • Design and Development (60%)
  • Maintain clean code and strong engineering standards such that when prototypes are greenlit for further development, the project is easy to build upon
  • 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 prioritize building a diverse and inclusive team where every employee can thrive, and every voice is heard.

Requirements

  • Continuously develop the skills required to work with this rapidly developing technology
  • Assist in resolving production issues with urgency and precision, ensuring a smooth and reliable user experience.

Nice to have

  • Hands-on experience implementing Generative AI applications (e.g., RAG chatbots, model fine-tuning, or other LLM-powered tools)
  • Strong knowledge and hands-on experience with back-end technologies such as Node.js and/or Python
  • Experience with asynchronous programming and event-driven messaging patterns
  • Strong knowledge of AWS services (e.g., Lambda, SNS, SQS, S3, Step Functions, IAM, KMS, API Gateway, CloudWatch, DynamoDB)
  • Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments
  • Proven ability to mentor and coach less experienced teammates in new technologies
  • Strong analytical thinking, structured problem-solving, and practical decision-making skills
  • Effective communication and documentation skills

Skills

  • A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work
  • Authorization to work in the United States for any employer
  • Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal

Compensation

  • We're a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation, grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.

Benefits

  • You'll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it's like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process.
  • We are motivated to positively impact the educational and career trajectories of millions of students a year.
  • We value learning and growth
  • Our high-performing engineers work with the latest technologies, so you will be constantly learning and sharpening your skills, enabling you to be industry-forward instead of left behind technologically.
  • solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.

Company info

  • We value learning and growth; we offer formal and informal ways to lead through your superpowers, sharpen your strengths, and meet your development goals.
  • The BigFuture Student team builds and maintains the full breadth of BigFuture student products like BigFuture School a mobile app & bigfuture.org including but not limited to College Search, Scholarship Search, Career Search, dashboards, checklists, and community features so that students can confidently discover, define, and pursue their unique paths.
  • Together, we are mission-driven technologists who take pride in building products that positively transform the educational and career trajectories of students nationwide.
  • About the Opportunity
  • This is a chance to have a direct hand in building the future o f 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.
  • About Our Culture:
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This listing is sourced directly from College Board's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.