Staff Software Engineer, Backend

Our Mission and Opportunity

Early education is one of the greatest determinants of childhood outcomes, is a must for working families, and has a lasting social and economic impact. Brightwheel’s vision is to enable high quality early education for every child — by giving teachers meaningfully more time with students each day, engaging parents in the development of their kids, and supporting the small businesses that make up the backbone of the $175 billion early education market. Brightwheel is the most loved technology brand in early education globally, trusted by thousands of educators and millions of families.

Our Team

We are a fully remote team with employees across every time zone in the US. Our team is passionate, talented, and customer-focused. Our exceptional investor group includes Addition, Bessemer Venture Partners, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, GGV Capital, Lowercase Capital, Emerson Collective, and Mark Cuban. 

We believe that everyone—from our employees to the students, teachers, and administrators we serve— should be given the opportunity to learn and thrive, whatever their background may be. We celebrate diversity in all forms because it allows our team and the communities we serve to reach their full potential and do their best work.

Who you are

We are seeking a staff software engineer who is well-rounded technically and passionate about the positive impact their code can make in people's lives. Our Education team is building a new best-in-class learning platform used by admins, teachers and parents to support the growth and development of their students and children. You will launch brand new features and products to enable administrators and teachers to plan and deliver engaging and enriching activities, document development, and share progress with guardians and other stakeholders. At Brightwheel, product engineers work closely with product and design, as well as with other areas of the business to deliver a platform that meets our teachers’ & parents’ biggest needs. Every engineer at Brightwheel is afforded a high degree of ownership and autonomy. We are a lean, fast-moving team and value individuals who can optimize for being impactful while considering both technical and business drivers. You’ll bring a high degree of ownership and ability to execute.

What you’ll do

• Work alongside product and design to scope and implement new features or product lines.

• Provide input to both delivery and discovery–providing new ideas, proposals, and constructive criticism to the team.

• Be a steward of quality, scalability, security, and performance. You'll work with other engineers to ensure that we have a solid foundation that serves our customers, and enables the team to continue building a great product. 

• Design and architect new software systems or introduce new technologies, as appropriate to support brightwheel’s growth.

• Share knowledge and expertise across the engineering team.

• Mentor and help to grow the engineering team.

Qualifications, Skills, & Abilities:

• 5+ years of professional experience, preferably in fast-paced early- or mid-stage startups

• Proficiency in both contributing to and designing APIs using Ruby on Rails or similar technologies

• Expertise at writing automated tests (unit/integration/functional)

• Expertise in using Git (or VC equivalent)

• Experience with a variety of codebase sizes and ages

• Proficiency with AWS or other cloud platforms

• Experience with architecting distributed systems for scalability and reliability 

• Strong verbal and written communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences

• Experience with microservice or service oriented architectures preferred

• Experience with modern webapps like React.js preferred

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) preferred

• Candidates with varying backgrounds are encouraged to apply. We do not require prior knowledge of technologies in our stack, only a desire to learn them. At brightwheel you will encounter:

• Ruby on Rails

• PostgreSQL

• Redis

• React.js

• CircleCI

• GitHub Actions

• Kubernetes

• AWS managed services, like Redshift and ECS

$147,000 - $235,000 a year

Brightwheel is committed to internal pay equity and offers a competitive compensation package, including base salary, equity, and benefits. Our benefits package includes premium medical, dental, and vision benefits, generous paid parental leave, a flexible paid time off policy, a monthly wellness and productivity stipend, and a Learning & Development stipend.

For cash compensation, brightwheel sets standard ranges for all roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar-stage growth companies. Multiple factors determine final offer amounts, including geographic location, candidate experience, and expertise. If you have questions about the compensation band for your region, please ask your recruiter.

Brightwheel is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment and is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.