Senior Software Engineer

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also 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, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Pay Range: $ - $

The Senior Software Engineer designs, builds, and delivers scalable, high-quality software systems across the full stack. This role contributes to modern web applications and services, working across frontend, backend, and APIs to deliver end-to-end solutions. This engineer partners closely with product, design, and engineering teams to solve complex problems, drive technical direction, and improve system performance, reliability, and user experience. They are comfortable working across multiple languages and frameworks — primarily Java/Spring Boot and Type Script/Node.js

with Angular on the frontend — building cloud-native, event-driven services on AWS. They own the operational health of student-facing systems, handle student data responsibly (FERPA), mentor engineers, and contribute to a strong engineering culture.

• Strong foundation in software development, system design, and scalable architecture.
• Experience building full-stack applications (frontend, backend, and APIs).
• Proficiency in modern languages such as Java, Type Script/Node.js, and JavaScript (Python a plus).
• Experience with frontend frameworks such as Angular (or similar frameworks).
• Strong understanding of API design and system integration (e.g., RESTful services).
• Ability to work across multiple languages and frameworks, selecting the right tools for the problem.
• Strong cloud-native development skills on AWS (Fargate/ECS, Lambda, API Gateway, RDS, S3), including containerized microservices.
• Ability to design for scalability, performance, and reliability.
• Strong understanding of SDLC and modern development practices.
• Experience with observability practices (logging, monitoring, distributed tracing) using tools such as Dynatrace and Cloud Watch.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams and influence technical direction.
• Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and improve team performance.
• Strong ownership mindset with the ability to manage risk and dependencies.
• Ability to operate in ambiguous environments and adapt quickly to new challenges.

• Participates in on-call rotation and acts as the escalation point for complex production incidents; owns availability, MTTR, and change‑success outcomes for the team's services.
• Leads migrations and modernization within the domain (framework/library upgrades, service re-platforming, database changes) and manages the team's technical‑debt landscape.
• Challenges incomplete, conflicting, or infeasible requirements and drives root‑cause analysis rather than fixing symptoms.
• Uses AI‑assisted development tools effectively and responsibly, within data‑handling and security policies.
• Leads troubleshooting and resolution of production incidents, including on‑call response, and drives post‑incident improvements that prevent recurrence.
• Owns the quality, performance, reliability, and accessibility (WCAG/ADA) of student‑facing…