Staff Software Engineer

About this role

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.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to 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 411

Pay Range: $161,000.00 - $249,500.00 Job Description

The Staff Software Engineer is a position of technical expertise, influence, and leadership in the technology realm. The position will be required to apply their expert knowledge to ensure best practices and well-engineered architecture across the department. They will also be a key stakeholder and initiator of major changes to processes, engineering practices, and system administration. This position will be required to work in a space of solving critical issues and initiatives across multiple teams. It will require an extensive and deep understanding of cutting-edge practices and innovative approaches to problems. Principal Software Engineers are also tasked with establishing and maintaining a positive and productive culture based on the WGU Leadership Principles.   Job Duties • Acts as an expert in multiple areas of software engineering. • Maintains accountability for the quality of services in multiple areas and teams for the success of the assigned project for on-time, on-budget, and on-scope delivery. • Contributes as a lead or consultant for their domain area or multiple teams. Is a ‘go-to’ person in at least one sub-discipline and competent and trusted in several other disciplines or application areas. • Contributes formally and informally to the effectiveness of teams through formal and informal mentoring and direction during team meetings and problem solving. • Contributes and often identifies systemic issues to be solved and contributes to the resolution of the same. • Actively ensures that engineering has the skill sets they need to be successful with current and future technologies. • Acts as a planning consultant for Portfolio or Ed Tech as a whole when identifying technical risks and dependencies. Identifies problems far in advance, finds multiple solutions, and recommends the preferred solution to teams and to management. • Speaks authoritatively and accurately with respect to questions related to their area of ownership or for the platform as a whole. • Actively improves operational excellence measured by availability of the platform to students, faculty, and staff. • Applies strategies and tools to plan and execute testing strategies to find the ‘sweet spot’ that maximizes quality while minimizing costs. Demonstrates the ‘good enough’ principle that balances quality and time to implement. • Understands implications of functional and non-functional requirements on the system. Identifies deficiencies in requirements and works with product owners to provide alternatives. • Machine Learning & Intelligent Systems: Define the architecture, development, and deployment of machine learning, LLM, and intelligent systems at scale, from research and experimentation through production implementation. • LLM & AI Platform Architecture: Define how LLMs, generative AI, agents, and intelligent systems are integrated into the core platform architecture to ensure scalability, extensibility, security, and operational robustness. • Technical Vision & Innovation: Identify emerging technologies, research trends, and industry best practices and translate them into practical innovations that strengthen the platform and create new capabilities. • Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

KSAs Expert understanding of the processes associated with software development, including Planning, Measurement, Coding, Testing, Reuse, Tools, Abstraction, Algorithms and Complexity, Security, and basic system understanding.

Ability to employ the tools and techniques related to an engineering discipline, such as database management, user interface development, inter-process communication, etc.

Ability to create designs that can be realized in code that achieve functional and non-functional requirements of the system. Appropriately uses design patterns, system decomposition, security, and fault tolerance. A demonstrated capability in one or more design methodologies, such as Object-oriented design, Function-oriented design, data-centered design and the notations appropriate for each.

Ability to understand differences, strengths, and weaknesses of various Software Development Life Cycle models, and practical considerations of options

Understands implications of Software as a Service in the creation of software systems. Thinks of and designs for scale, reliability, and cost in a public cloud environment. Uses data and metrics to analyze Key Performance Indicators.

Ability to explain the basic value of a system and subsystems to users and how the various subsystems interoperate to provide features. Able to act as a partner with Operations in solving platform problems at a system level.

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