Lead Software Engineer, Customer Experience & Reliability

Role Summary

As a Lead Software Engineer for Customer Experience & Reliability, you are a technical leader and customer advocate responsible for driving the resolution of complex, cross-system production issues. This role offers a unique mix of technical leadership and hands-on engagement, allowing you to influence outcomes while staying close to the technology.

What You’ll Do

• Lead Production Issue Ownership
• Coordinate & Facilitate Technical Problem Solving
• Lead cross-functional debugging sessions across Engineering, Customer Success Managers, Operations, and Support.
• Help teams converge on root causes by asking the right technical questions.
• Support during incidents by tracking decisions, risks, and next steps.
• Translate between customer impact and system behavior.
• Technical Troubleshooting & Guidance
• Maintain deep technical fluency to: Read and reason about C#, .NET / .NET Core, and JavaScript code
• Analyze logs, metrics, and traces (e.g., Splunk, New Relic, APM tools)
• Reproduce issues at a conceptual or functional level
• Review proposed fixes and designs with a focus on reliability, operability, and customer impact.
• Proactive Customer Experience & Reliability Improvements
• Manually reproduce customer issues, isolate root causes, and deploy fixes under time pressure while partnering with L1/L2 support teams to resolve high-priority advisor tickets.
• Recognize recurring issue patterns and provide feedback to feature development teams to drive systemic improvements.
• Identify systemic weaknesses and partner with engineering teams to improve observability, diagnostics, and operational readiness.
• Support and influence emerging automation or AI-assisted diagnostic workflows.
• Mentorship & Leadership
• Model strong ownership, calm decision-making, and accountability during production incidents.
• Mentor engineers and support teams on effective incident handling and production readiness.
• Reinforce a culture where customer experience is an engineering responsibility.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years experience in software engineering, production support, reliability, or tech-lead roles
• Hands-on experience with C#, .NET / .NET Core
• Practical familiarity with JavaScript / web application behavior
• Experience working with distributed systems in production
• Familiarity with AWS-hosted systems and cloud-based architectures
• Proven ability to lead incidents and cross-team technical problem solving
• Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences

Pay & Benefits

Compensation And Benefits At Morningstar we believe people are at their best when they are at their healthiest. That’s why we champion your wellness through a wide range of programs that support all stages of your personal and professional life. Here are some examples of the offerings we provide:

• Financial Health
• Stock Ownership Potential
• Company provided life insurance - 1x salary + commission
• Physical Health
• 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 annually
• Company-provided long- and short-term disability insurance
• Emotional Health
• Traust-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
• Dollars for Doers volunteer program
• Paid volunteering days
• 15+ Employee Resource & Affinity Groups

Total Cash Compensation Range

$114,100.00-167,350.00 Inclusive of annual base salary and target incentive

Morningstar's Hybrid Work Environment

Morningstar's hybrid work environment gives you the opportunity to collaborate in-person each week as we've found that we're at our best when we're purposely together on a regular basis. In most of our locations, our hybrid work model is four days in-office each week.