Senior Software Engineer, AI-Augmented Development

ACT Education•Iowa City, IA

1d•Remote

About The Position

ACT is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to support its mission of helping people achieve education and workplace success. This hands-on individual-contributor role applies advanced software engineering expertise to independent and collaborative software delivery, with a strong emphasis on AI-augmented development. The engineer directs AI coding tools to implement features, then applies human judgment to review, test, correct, and own the work from specification through production. The role also pilots AI-assisted development tools and techniques, measures their impact, and shares effective practices with colleagues. It may grow to include cross-team responsibility for advancing responsible AI-assisted development across the engineering organization. The position involves solving complex technical problems across the team's core systems and integrations, contributing technical judgment to modernization initiatives, and applying knowledge of platform architecture, history, and constraints. The engineer evaluates where AI tools provide genuine value, takes particular care with security- and compliance-sensitive code, and helps maintain evaluation and guardrail practices that prevent regressions. The role participates in the team's engineering support rotation. During the first year, the engineer is expected to onboard to the platform and AI tooling, ship small AI-directed changes, and identify AI-generated errors before release; then take ownership of a feature or workstream and contribute an adopted improvement to team practice; and, by the end of the year, lead a modernization effort or comparable initiative, with potential contributions to cross-team AI standards and mentoring. This is a remote position based in the United States. Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship. The anticipated annual salary is $110,000–$135,000, depending on qualifications and other relevant factors. The position is not incentive eligible.

Requirements

At least 5 years of progressively responsible software engineering experience.
Fundamentals in object-oriented and/or functional programming.
Ability to reason about data modeling and query performance across relational and/or schema-driven data layers.
Knowledge of API design, contracts, versioning, and backward compatibility, using REST or schema-first approaches such as GraphQL.
Security fundamentals, including authentication and authorization flows, common injection classes, and dependency risk.
Distributed systems fundamentals, including failure modes, statelessness, and behavior under concurrent load.
Experience with a backend language/runtime such as Node.js (NestJS), Java, or a comparable object-oriented or functional stack.
Experience with an API paradigm such as GraphQL or REST, including schema design and versioning.
Experience with a modern frontend framework such as React or a comparable component-based framework.
Experience with a relational database such as PostgreSQL or a comparable RDBMS.
Experience with cloud/container infrastructure such as AWS and Kubernetes or comparable cloud-native infrastructure.
Production experience using Claude Code or a comparable AI-assisted coding tool, with specific examples of how it materially changed an approach to a problem.
A track record of piloting an AI-assisted development tool or technique and measuring its actual impact, such as time saved, defect rate, or review burden.
Ability to critically evaluate AI-generated code and a specific example of catching an AI-generated error before release.
Working knowledge of AI-specific security risks, including unverified or malicious AI-suggested dependencies and injected logic, and practices for identifying them before production.
Strong engineering fundamentals independent of AI tooling.
Ability to work from ambiguous specifications and exercise sound judgment about when to escalate or proceed independently.
Experience working, or ability to work, across a mixed legacy and modern technology stack.
Experience owning delivery end to end, from specification through production, including writing specifications clear enough for AI tools to implement.
Bachelor's degree in computer or data science, software engineering, artificial intelligence, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

Nice To Haves

Ability to influence engineering practices and colleagues outside a direct reporting relationship, or interest in growing into this scope.
Experience evaluating or comparing multiple AI coding tools or models for team fit.
Familiarity with test administration or assessment delivery systems, or a comparable domain.
Experience mentoring or setting technical standards across multiple teams.
Background in education technology or a similarly regulated, integration-heavy domain.
Experience building or extending evaluation or guardrail frameworks for AI-generated code.

Responsibilities

Solve complex technical problems across the team's core systems and integrations, using AI-assisted approaches where useful.
Contribute senior-level technical judgment to modernization initiatives, including legacy-to-modern platform migrations.
Pilot AI-assisted development tools, models, and techniques against real delivery work and assess their impact.
Propose AI use cases and measure outcomes such as time saved, defect rates, and review burden.
Update team norms, playbooks, and tooling recommendations based on AI adoption learnings.
Apply knowledge of platform architecture, history, and constraints to technical decisions.
Direct AI coding tools and agents to implement features from specifications, tickets, or requirements, and own delivery from specification through production.
Review, test, and correct AI-generated code for correctness, security, scalability, and architectural fit.
Scrutinize AI-suggested dependencies and code, particularly work involving authentication, data access, or external integrations, to address security and supply-chain risks.
Write specifications clear enough for AI tools to implement, and use judgment to decide when ambiguous issues require escalation.
Maintain and extend evaluation and guardrail practices that catch AI-introduced regressions before production.
Independently evaluate AI-assisted development tools, including Claude Code and comparable tools, and recommend engineering practices with a high degree of autonomy.
Share and teach AI-assisted development practices, including code review norms, prompting approaches, and verification habits.
As the role matures, lead or contribute to cross-team standards for responsible AI tool use in engineering.
Participate in the engineering support rotation.
Complete first-year milestones, including onboarding, shipping and owning work, improving team practices, and leading a modernization effort or comparable initiative.