Manager, Software Engineering

Western Governors University•Phoenix, AZ

14d•$151,800 - $250,500•Onsite

About The Position

WGU is hiring a hands-on engineering leader to build and grow the team behind the systems that place our students into the real-world experiences their degrees require — clinical rotations for nursing and health professions students in the Leavitt School of Health, and classroom placements for teacher candidates in the School of Education. When these systems work well, a student starts their placement on time and graduates on time. That is the outcome this team owns. The team builds on Salesforce and extends well beyond it: custom services, integrations with university systems, and a growing set of AI and large-language-model workflows, including direct integrations with AWS Bedrock where that is the stronger engineering answer. We are looking for a manager who is still genuinely technical — someone who reviews designs and code, prototypes alongside the team, and has the platform judgment to decide when to configure, when to build, and when to integrate. You will work in close partnership with a dedicated product team, which owns the roadmap and prioritization; you own how it gets built and who builds it. This is a build-and-rebuild role. You will inherit a capable team that has been through real change over the past year, several open positions to fill, and a meaningful say in how this group works and what it builds next. If re-energizing a team and setting its technical direction is the work you want, this role offers an unusual amount of room to do it.

Requirements

Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field, or equivalent.
5+ years of Enterprise-level Java Application development with experience both as a hands-on programmer and software development manager.
Requires broad management knowledge to lead the department. Generally, has advanced-level knowledge and skills within a specific technical or professional discipline, with an understanding of the impact of work on other areas of the University.
AI and LLM fluency. Practical experience applying AI and large language models to real software problems — both in how software gets built and in what the software does. Comfortable evaluating model options, designing prompts and evaluation criteria, and reasoning about cost, latency, accuracy, and data privacy trade-offs.
People leadership. A track record of hiring strong engineers, developing them, and retaining them. Able to give clear direction and honest feedback, and to build trust with a team going through change.
Hands-on engineering depth. Still credible in the technical work. Deep enough in application architecture, APIs, and integration patterns to guide design and review code meaningfully.
Platform judgment. Knows when a platform solution is the right answer and when it is not, and can explain that reasoning to both engineers and business stakeholders.
Commitment to quality. Translates complex technical requirements into working software using sound engineering practice and holds a real quality bar.
Product partnership. Effective working with product management as a peer — able to push back constructively on scope, surface technical constraints early, and translate engineering trade-offs into terms a product partner can act on.
Communication. Strong verbal and written communication; works well with staff, colleagues, cross-functional partners, and third-party vendors, and equally well in self-managed and team-based Agile/Scrum settings.
Agile practice. Strong command of Agile methods, including Scrum and test-driven development.
Enterprise web development. Deep technical knowledge of enterprise web application development, including Java-based applications and web services (REST/SOAP/XML/JSON).

Nice To Haves

AI and machine learning. Experience building or deploying LLM-backed features in production — for example, with AWS Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, or comparable model platforms — including retrieval, evaluation, and cost management.
AI-assisted engineering. Experience leading teams that adopted AI-assisted development tooling, including the review and quality practices that have to come with it.
Salesforce. Working knowledge of the Salesforce platform — Apex, Lightning Web Components, Flow, and data modeling — and the judgment to know where the platform's limits are. Experience evaluating Salesforce's AI capabilities against alternatives is a plus.
Full-stack breadth. Depth in a modern stack beyond Java — Python, TypeScript/Node, or similar — plus front-end frameworks such as React or Lightning.
Cloud and platform. AWS services, infrastructure as code, CI/CD pipelines, and observability practices.
Integration and data. Experience integrating CRM, student information systems, document management, or legacy enterprise systems; relational database design and SQL.
Regulated data. Experience with student data privacy (FERPA), health information handling, or comparable regulated-data environments.
Domain. Prior work in higher education, healthcare workforce, clinical placement, or credentialing systems.
Education. Master of Science Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field.

Responsibilities

Lead and grow the team
Manage, coach, and develop a team of software engineers; set clear expectations, give direct feedback, and conduct performance and development conversations.
Own hiring for the team's open positions — sourcing, interviewing, closing candidates, and onboarding them well.
Build a team culture people want to be part of: clear priorities, visible impact, and space to learn.
Partner closely with the product team on roadmap, scope, and sequencing — bringing engineering perspective, technical feasibility, and effort trade-offs early enough to shape what gets built.
Build strong working relationships with academic and operations leaders across the Leavitt School of Health and the School of Education alongside your product partners.
Set the AI direction
Establish how this team uses AI in its own engineering practice — AI-assisted development, code review, testing, and documentation — and hold a sensible bar for quality, security, and review as those practices mature.
Work with the product team to identify where AI and LLMs create real value — intelligent matching and scheduling, document and credential processing, summarization, and agent-style workflows that reduce manual effort for students and placement staff — and own the technical evaluation, design, and build.
Make deliberate platform decisions. Extend Salesforce where the platform is genuinely the right fit; design custom services or direct AWS Bedrock integrations where they deliver better results, lower cost, or more control. We are looking for someone who reaches for the right tool rather than defaulting to a single vendor's roadmap.
Establish practical guardrails for AI work — data handling, student-data privacy, evaluation, human review, and cost management.
Stay hands-on
Spend a meaningful share of your week in technical work: architecture and design reviews, code reviews, spikes, prototypes, and debugging alongside the team. You should expect to write code — roughly a quarter to a third of your time — and to be able to hold your own in a design discussion on day one.
Lead application architecture and make sound build / configure/buy/integrate decisions.
Mentor engineers through design and code review, raising the technical level of the team over time.
Deliver
Partner with product management on roadmap and prioritization, and own engineering delivery against it — resource planning, technical sequencing, scheduling, and delivery timelines.
Deliver quality solutions on time, within budget and scope, using Agile/Scrum practices.
Drive the full development lifecycle: technical discovery, feasibility estimates, design, implementation, documentation, testing, release, and support.
Support change management for software releases, patching, and production configuration changes.
Identify and resolve risks early, when they are still cheap to fix.
Oversee department expenses and contribute to budget planning.
Perform other related duties as assigned.