Senior Software Engineer

About the role

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate and creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Responsibilities

• Research, design, development, analysis, testing, and implementation of software operating or application systems
• Communicate project information to client, project manager, or other design personnel
• Maintain good working relationships with clients and staff
• Write and maintain complete documentation
• Support team members and ensure established goals and deadlines are met
• Keep management informed of status and significant problems
• Design, develop, and maintain scalable backend services, APIs, and distributed systems using Java and Python
• Lead backend architecture decisions focused on scalability, reliability, security, and performance
• Build and maintain RESTful APIs and microservices that support web and mobile applications
• Collaborate with frontend engineers working in Angular and Flutter to deliver seamless end-to-end solutions
• Optimize database performance, system integrations, and application reliability
• Implement cloud-native solutions and contribute to infrastructure automation initiatives
• Drive engineering best practices around testing, CI/CD, observability, and secure software development
• Mentor engineers through code reviews, technical leadership, and architectural guidance
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues across the application stack
• Participate in technical strategy discussions and platform modernization initiatives
• Contribute to engineering standards, documentation, and continuous improvement efforts

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong backend development expertise with Java and Python
• Experience building scalable APIs, microservices, and distributed systems
• Experience with Spring Boot, FastAPI, Flask, Django, or similar backend frameworks
• Solid understanding of full-stack application architecture
• Working knowledge of Angular, TypeScript, and frontend integration patterns
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP
• Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and DevOps practices
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes
• Strong troubleshooting, performance tuning, and debugging skills
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and technical leadership abilities

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with event-driven architectures and message queues
• Experience with GraphQL and API gateway technologies
• Experience building high-availability or enterprise-scale systems
• Familiarity with Flutter mobile application architectures
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform
• Experience with monitoring and observability platforms
• Passion for scalable system design and backend optimization
• Experience working in agile product delivery environments

What Success Looks Like

• Building scalable, reliable, and secure backend systems
• Delivering high-performance APIs and distributed services
• Improving platform stability, observability, and maintainability
• Providing strong technical leadership and mentorship
• Driving architectural improvements and engineering excellence
• Contributing to a collaborative and high-performing engineering culture

Pay

The salary range for this position takes into account skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is: Grade: Technical 410 Pay Range: $143,700.00 – $222,700.00

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare
• Health savings account and flexible spending account
• Basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage
• Accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages
• Legal and identity theft coverage
• Retirement savings plan
• Wellbeing program
• Discounted WGU tuition
• Flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual
• Flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual
• 11 paid holidays
• Other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave