Lead Backend Engineer

College Board – Technology – BigFuture Student

Location: Remote - Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office). The ideal candidate will be on located in EST or CST.

Type: This is a full-time position

About the Team

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. 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. 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. 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. We thrive on learning from each other, raising risks early, and finding simplicity in complexity, all while celebrating shared successes and growth. 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 of 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. You Own the technical direction: Define, document, and communicate the architecture and design patterns for the system or product area. You have a strong interest in understanding our stakeholders and leveraging new technologies to support them. You’ll work closely with product owners, architects, and designers to translate ideas into solutions, and with fellow engineers to raise the bar on code quality, documentation, and sustainable practices including operational readiness and monitoring. From day one, you’ll be encouraged to coach teammates, influence technical decisions, and help simplify complex problems so that students and educators experience fast, reliable, and meaningful tools. Beyond building products, this role offers you the opportunity to elevate engineering practices, explore emerging technologies like AI, and grow into a trusted technical leader whose work impacts millions of students each year. You are not shy about taking on new work you may not have done before while owning all phases of prototyping including requirements definition and analysis, application design, coding, reviewing, testing, deploying, and support. You are eager to lead by example as well as more formally through peer collaboration, coaching and mentoring.

In this role, you will:

Design and Development (60%)

• 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.

• Break down new product capabilities into actionable, verifiable technical changes that move quickly from concept to reality.

• 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

• Exercise discretion in prototyping: investing time to make sure the most important things work well, and working with the team to mock or minimize less important features

• Maintain clean code and strong engineering standards such that when prototypes are greenlit for further development, the project is easy to build upon

• Continuously develop the skills required to work with this rapidly developing technology

Team Operations & Success (30%)

• Participate in, or lead Agile SCRUM ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Grooming, Daily SCRUM, Demo) by contributing to team deliverables and driving alignment, focus, and momentum across sprints.

• Elevate team performance by giving and receiving thoughtful code reviews, mentoring peers, and helping solve complex technical challenges.

• Assist in resolving production issues with urgency and precision, ensuring a smooth and reliable user experience.

• Model discipline in adhering to development standards, security practices, and CI/CD principles while helping the team move fast without compromising quality.

• Continuously grow your skills and embrace a poly-skilled environment where everyone contributes beyond their specialty.

• Serve as an organizational Subject Matter Expert on implementing Generative AI applications

• Work with our Enterprise Architecture team to review and/or establish implementation patterns involving Generative AI tools

• Advise on, and where feasible, create tools and infrastructure that will enable teams to safely deploy Generative AI tools

Learning & Sharing (10%)

• Keep abreast of developments in GenAI capabilities and implementations

• Share knowledge of new developments with the team via chats, meetings, and presentations when appropriate

• Serve as an advisor to internal teams developing staff education around Generative AI

About you, you have:

• 7+ years of professional experience designing, building, testing, and managing scalable web applications in AWS-hosted environments

• 3+ years’ experience building back-end applications using Node(with TypeScript)

• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redshift, DynamoDB)

• Experience building observability for your products: Set up CloudWatch, X-Ray, for logging, metrics, and alerts.

• Hands-on experience implementing Generative AI applications (e.g., RAG chatbots, model fine-tuning, or other LLM-powered tools)

• Enthusiasm for learning new technologies, especially in the fast-moving GenAI space

• 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

• Proficiency in reviewing and improving code structure and architecture for testability, maintainability, and scalability, with hands-on experience in JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Node.js, Next.js, APIs, and AWS Serverless technologies (Lambdas, DynamoDB, S3, CloudWatch, etc.).

• Leadership in the end-to-end design and implementation of user interfaces, from architectural planning and component strategy through to polished execution, including accessibility, performance optimization, and mentoring peers on building intuitive, scalable, and user-centric front-end solutions.

• Strong problem-solving skills, working collaboratively with team members to identify and resolve issues, and partnering with Product Owners to prioritize backlog.

• Proven ability to pitch new ideas and implement improved systems and processes, delivering excellent results.

• Effective communicator and team lead, able to provide actionable feedback, mentor team members, and participate in interviews to evaluate engineering talent.

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, or related engineering fields preferred

All roles at College Board require:

• A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work

• Authorization to work in the United States for any employer

• Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and a comfort learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively.

• Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal

• A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input.

• A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.

• A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success.

About Our Process

• Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.

• While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding or whiteboarding sessions, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.

What We Offer

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

A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation

• The hiring range for this role $168,000 to $183,000

• Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at the College Board.

• We aim to make our best offer upfront—rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data.

• We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live.

You’ll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it’s like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more.

About Our Culture:

• We are motivated to positively impact the educational and career trajectories of millions of students a year.

• We prioritize building a diverse and inclusive team where every employee can thrive, and every voice is heard.

• We value learning and growth; we offer formal and informal ways to lead through your superpowers, sharpen your strengths, and meet your development goals.

• 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.

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