Staff Software Engineer

Western Governors University•Salt Lake City, UT

10d•$161,000 - $249,500

About The Position

The Staff Software Engineer provides technical expertise, influence, and leadership across the technology organization. The role applies expert knowledge to promote engineering best practices and well-designed architecture, and serves as a key stakeholder and initiator of significant changes to processes, engineering practices, and system administration. The engineer addresses critical issues and initiatives across multiple teams, applies deep knowledge of current and emerging engineering practices, and helps foster a positive, productive culture based on WGU Leadership Principles. The role provides technical leadership across software engineering disciplines and teams, contributes as a lead or consultant, mentors and directs colleagues, and helps identify and resolve systemic issues. It supports planning by identifying technical risks and dependencies, recommends solutions to problems, and works with product owners to address requirements deficiencies. The engineer also advances operational excellence and platform availability, plans cost-effective testing strategies, and designs systems for functional and non-functional requirements, scale, reliability, and cost in public cloud environments. The position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including attendance at designated company summits, typically one to two per year. Other business-related travel may be assigned as needed. This is a full-time regular position classified for 40 standard weekly hours and eligible for bonuses and the listed benefits.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience as permitted by the posting.
10 years of software development experience.
Experience pioneering new engineering approaches and technologies.
Experience with web-based applications and web services, such as Java, REST, SQL, and GIT.
Experience integrating third-party products.
Expert understanding of software development processes, including planning, measurement, coding, testing, reuse, tools, abstraction, algorithms and complexity, security, and basic systems concepts.
Ability to use engineering tools and techniques, such as database management, user interface development, and inter-process communication.
Ability to design systems that meet functional and non-functional requirements and can be implemented in code.
Knowledge of design patterns, system decomposition, security, and fault tolerance.
Demonstrated capability in one or more design methodologies, such as object-oriented, function-oriented, or data-centered design, and the appropriate notations.
Understanding of the differences, strengths, and weaknesses of Software Development Life Cycle models and practical considerations when choosing among them.
Understanding of how Software as a Service affects software system design.
Ability to design for scale, reliability, and cost in a public cloud environment and use data and metrics to analyze Key Performance Indicators.
Ability to explain system and subsystem value to users and how subsystems work together to provide features.
Ability to demonstrate urgency in finding solutions to problems.
Understanding of the higher education landscape, particularly online higher education, including its competitive landscape, opportunities, and feature gaps.
Ability to strengthen team cohesion and communicate effectively with others at the appropriate level and time.
Ability to communicate in group settings by understanding the audience, listening effectively, and responding appropriately.
Ability to identify, mitigate, or avoid risks and coordinate with leads or managers to ensure risks and dependencies are understood and planned for.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
Technical experience with GIT, SQL, Spring, Spring Boot, Java, Angular 2 or later, and AWS services.
Experience with Salesforce development lifecycle techniques and Salesforce governor limits.
Experience with cloud-based telephony, CTI, SIP/VoIP phones and protocols, QoS, IVRs, and call recording.
Experience architecting, implementing, and managing enterprise-level contact center solutions.
Experience with distance education and distance learning students.
Technical certifications.

Responsibilities

Act as an expert in multiple areas of software engineering.
Maintain accountability for service quality across multiple areas and teams and support on-time, on-budget, on-scope project delivery.
Contribute as a lead or consultant for a domain area or multiple teams; serve as a trusted go-to person in at least one sub-discipline and be competent in other disciplines or application areas.
Mentor and direct colleagues, contribute to team effectiveness, identify systemic issues, and help resolve them.
Ensure engineering teams have the skills needed for current and future technologies.
Consult on portfolio or education technology planning by identifying technical risks and dependencies.
Identify problems in advance, develop multiple solutions, and recommend a preferred solution to teams and management.
Provide authoritative and accurate guidance about areas of ownership and the overall platform.
Improve operational excellence, including platform availability for students, faculty, and staff.
Plan and execute testing strategies that balance quality and cost.
Balance quality and implementation time using the good-enough principle.
Assess functional and non-functional requirements, identify deficiencies, and work with product owners on alternatives.
Partner with Operations to solve platform problems at a system level.
Identify innovative technologies or ideas that could advance the education platform or improve efficiency, and use change-management processes to support adoption.
Communicate effectively, present solutions, manage expectations, and work with leads or managers to identify, mitigate, or avoid risks and plan for dependencies.
Perform other job-related duties as assigned.