Principal Software Engineer - Ruby/Rails

Great Purpose. Great People. Great Opportunities.

At Imagine Learning we empower potential by creating educational solutions that inspire boundless possibilities for every student, every day. We are passionate about innovating together to support educators in creating those special moments when students experience the joy of learning at its best.

We also empower our team through a strong culture focused on career growth and development, flexible work from home arrangements, interesting and meaningful work, and a supportive and connected team. As a remote-friendly company, hybrid and remote team members work from states across the U.S. and internationally. The majority of our US employees enjoy the opportunity to work from home, or in a hybrid capacity in our offices in Tempe, AZ (headquarters), Austin, TX, Petaluma, CA, Rock Rapids, IA, Grand Rapids, MI, or Bloomington, MN.

Imagine Your Impact.

As a Principal Software Engineer of the Product and Enterprise Operations team, you will lead the solution architecture, engineering direction, and engineering capability of our core curriculum platform. You will define and integrate the architectural roadmap with broader, next-generation enterprise platform services to consistently deliver high-quality software. You will use your leadership and communication skills to collaborate with engineering and operations teams.

For more information on what it’s like to work at Imagine Learning, including our culture, benefits, and products, visit us HERE.

To learn more about a typical applicant journey at Imagine Learning, click HERE.

Position Information: This is a regular, full-time position, reporting to the Senior Software Engineering Manager.

Compensation: Base pay is anticipated to be between $150,406 and $180,000 per year. Eligible employees may also receive incentive/commission/annual bonus pay based on individual and/or company performance. Compensation may vary based on factors such as, but not limited to, individual skills, experience, training, education/certifications, geographic location, internal equity, and local market conditions.

Location: In this US-based position your location will be hybrid in our Tempe, AZ office

Benefits: Imagine Learning provides a comprehensive benefits program to eligible employees, including:

• Multiple health, dental, and vision plans, including medical plans with zero employee premiums
• 401k plan with a company match
• 16 paid holidays, which include 2 floating holidays and a winter shutdown from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day
• Paid Time Off
• Comprehensive maternity and fertility/family building benefits
• Paid bonding leave when a new child joins your family
• Access to on-demand mental health resources
• Life and short and long-term disability insurance
• Pre-tax savings plans
• Paid volunteer time off
• A wide variety of professional development programs, including tuition reimbursement
• Work from home opportunities that foster work/life balance

Envision Your Experience.

In this role you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Design and develop full-stack software to add impactful new features for teachers, students, parents, and administrative users.
• Identify, prioritize, and execute tasks in the software development life cycle.
• Develop tools and applications by producing clean, efficient code, and provide helpful guidance to others on how to do the same during peer reviews.
• Automate tasks through appropriate tools and scripting.
• Review and debug code, and write unit, functional, and integration tests.
• Collaborate with engineering, QA, product, UX, and other internal teams and vendors to fix and improve products.
• Document development phases and monitor systems.
• Ensure software is up to date with the latest technologies. Advocate for the appropriate use of new or improved technologies, while considering the economic impact on the department’s output.
• Ship features often to production with little to no issues.
• Scale our applications as our user base grows, and break large projects down into smaller, easier to ship features.
• Frame the problems in ways that help the team and company clarify goals and approaches.
• Open up new approaches and ways of thinking and opportunities that contribute to our collective mission.
• Self-managed; doesn't require management or significant direct involvement of others to move personal responsibilities forward.
• Initiate and bring to a close, scope-cutting conversations as work progresses to land on a minimum viable product.
• Help others faced with technical hurdles and help onboard new employees.
• Understand and effectively communicate the impact that new decisions and technical hurdles have on work duration.
• Other duties as required.

Share Your Expertise.

Experience, education, and qualifications essential for success in this role, include:

• 8+ years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree or 6+ years with a Master’s degree or 5+ years with a PhD
• Must have hands-on coding experience. Percentage of coding done by this role: 80%
• Ability to innovate and evaluate at a senior level; thinks strategically across one or more technologies
• Capable of high level strategic architectural planning and goal setting
• Strong technology leader in two or more domains; working knowledge of all enterprise domains
• Experience designing and creating Restful Services
• Experience in designing and building solutions using Microservices Architecture & Event Driven Architecture
• Strong understanding and experience with Amazon Web Services or other cloud providers
• Track record of successful platform and architecture transformation initiatives
• Mastery with Ruby on Rails and proficient in other languages and frameworks such as Vue.js.
• Drive continuous improvement across architecture, engineering, and quality
• Effective communicator to non-technologists and Product teams; makes technical issues readily understandable to general audiences
• Experience with Agile methodologies and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
• Promote Product and Enterprise Operations culture and values.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB+).

Diversity and inclusivity strengthen our Imagine Learning team, enrich our lives, and help us design equitable educational experiences where learners see themselves and can also learn about people, cultures, experiences, and perspectives different from their own. We strive to hire, develop, and retain talented people who represent the diversity of the districts we serve. By developing initiatives that focus on the needs, expectations, and lives of our people, we’ve created an inclusive environment where all employees can contribute to their fullest potential.

Imagine Learning is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to a diverse workforce, providing equal employment and advancement opportunities to qualified individuals. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, transgender status (including whether or not you are transitioning or have transitioned), sexual orientation, marital status, religion (including religion dress and grooming practices), age 40 and over, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information (including results of genetic testing and characteristics), veteran and/or military status, or service in the military, and any other basis or status protected under applicable federal, state, or local laws. 

To all recruitment agencies: Imagine Learning does not accept agency resumes. Please do not submit candidates for consideration via our online application system, to Imagine Learning employees, or to any other organization location. Imagine Learning is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.