Software Engineer

Morningstar•Chicago, IL

10d•$89,625 - $131,442•Hybrid

About The Position

The Casper team builds and operates Morningstar Direct’s internal developer platform. Our mission is to streamline the software development lifecycle so application developers can quickly and easily deploy, monitor, scale, and secure applications. We provide teams with standardized, self-service paths to production while abstracting much of the underlying complexity of Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, and CI/CD. Our work spans the complete developer experience — from our tooling used to configure and deploy applications to the infrastructure that runs them. We support cloud-native workloads of all types and aim to provide advanced cloud-native production capabilities out-of-the-box like multi-region deployments, disaster recovery, and autoscaling. Looking ahead, we’ll evaluate how agentic engineering can improve developer productivity across the software development lifecycle. We’ll explore applications of generative AI that help platform users configure, deploy, troubleshoot, and operate their applications more efficiently, while ensuring these capabilities meet our standards for security, reliability, and responsible use. Our goal is to thoughtfully integrate AI where it can reduce friction, accelerate delivery, and make advanced cloud-native capabilities more accessible. We operate with a strong engineering culture centered on practical solutions, production reliability, and continuous improvement. We work closely with application developers and other platform engineers, balancing new capabilities with the security, scalability, and operational needs of a platform used across Morningstar. As a Software Engineer on the Casper team, you will help build and operate the services, developer tools, and infrastructure that make it easier for Morningstar teams to run applications in AWS. You will own well-scoped features through the development lifecycle — from understanding a user's needs and contributing to the design through implementation, testing, deployment, and production monitoring. With guidance from experienced teammates, you will work across different parts of the platform, including command-line tooling, deployment automation, and cloud infrastructure. You will use modern development practices and AI tools, while maintaining high standards for code quality, testing, documentation, and technical judgment. This role is well suited to someone who enjoys solving practical engineering problems, learning across application and infrastructure domains, and building tools that improve the experience of other developers.

Requirements

Strong collaboration and communication skills, with an ability to discuss technical decisions directly and thoughtfully
2+ years of professional software engineering experience using at least one modern programming language
Solid understanding of software engineering fundamentals, including data structures, APIs, testing, debugging, and common design patterns
Experience building, testing, and maintaining production-grade software
Ability to take ownership of well-defined work, identify risks, and ask for guidance when requirements or technical decisions are unclear
Experience troubleshooting systems using logs, metrics, error reports, and debugging tools
Familiarity with cloud computing, containerization, or modern application deployment concepts
An interest in learning across software development, cloud infrastructure, and platform operations
Experience working collaboratively through code reviews, version control, and iterative development practices

Nice To Haves

Experience with AWS services
Experience with containers and container orchestrators, particularly Kubernetes
Experience with infrastructure as code using Terraform
Experience with CI/CD systems such as Harness
Familiarity with GitOps tools like Helm or ArgoCD

Responsibilities

Design, build, and enhance capabilities across the Casper ecosystem, deployment automation, and supporting platform services
Own well-scoped features from initial requirements through implementation, testing, release, and production monitoring
Work with application developers and platform engineers to understand pain points and improve the developer experience
Contribute to the reliability, scalability, security, and maintainability of a production platform
Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code, including unit, integration, and regression tests
Diagnose issues across application code, CI/CD pipelines, AWS resources, and Kubernetes workloads
Use logging, metrics, alerts, and other observability tools to understand system behavior and improve reliability
Contribute to technical designs and architecture decisions with support from senior engineers
Improve automation and engineering practices that make changes safer and more consistent across environments
Create and maintain clear technical documentation, runbooks, and developer-facing guidance
Use AI-assisted development tools thoughtfully to accelerate implementation, testing, troubleshooting, and documentation

Benefits

100% 401k match up to 6% of salary
Stock Ownership Potential
Company provided life insurance - 1x salary + commission
Comprehensive health benefits (medical/dental/vision) including potential premium discounts and company-provided HSA contributions (up to $500-$2,000 annually) for specific plans and coverages
Additional medical Wellness Incentives - up to $300-$600 annual
Company-provided long- and short-term disability insurance
Trust-Based Time Off
6-week Paid Sabbatical Program
6-Week Paid Family Caregiving Leave
Competitive 8-24 Week Paid Parental Leave
Adoption Assistance
Leadership Coaching & Formal Mentorship Opportunities
Annual Flex Stipend - $1000 annually to cover personal education & well-being expenses
Tuition Reimbursement
Charitable Matching Gifts program
Dollars for Doers volunteer program
Paid volunteering days
15+ Employee Resource & Affinity Groups