Staff 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.

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 411Pay Range: $161,000.00 - $249,500.00

Job Description

Shape the Future of Education Through Technology
At WGU, our technology powers life-changing educational experiences for hundreds of thousands of students. As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll play a critical role in defining the technical direction, architecture, and engineering practices that enable us to scale, innovate, and deliver exceptional experiences across the university.

This is a high-impact technical leadership role for an engineer who thrives on solving complex problems, influencing architecture across multiple teams, and driving engineering excellence. You'll work on strategic initiatives that span platforms, services, and business domains while helping teams adopt modern engineering practices, cloud technologies, and scalable system designs.

You'll be trusted as a technical authority, mentor, and thought leader, helping guide some of the most important technology decisions at WGU. If you're passionate about building resilient systems, modernizing platforms, improving developer productivity, and mentoring engineers, we'd love to talk with you.

What You'll Do

Drive Architecture and Technical Strategy

• Lead the design and evolution of scalable, secure, and highly available distributed systems.

• Partner with engineering leaders, architects, and product teams to define technical roadmaps and long-term technology strategies.

• Identify technical risks, architectural gaps, and system dependencies early, and proactively develop solutions.

• Influence technology decisions across multiple teams and domains.

Solve Complex Technical Challenges

• Serve as a subject matter expert across multiple engineering disciplines and platforms.

• Lead the investigation and resolution of critical production issues and complex cross-team initiatives.

• Evaluate emerging technologies, architectural patterns, and engineering practices to improve platform capabilities and efficiency.

• Balance technical excellence with pragmatic delivery decisions to maximize business impact.

Elevate Engineering Excellence

• Champion modern software engineering practices, including cloud-native architectures, automation, observability, testing strategies, and security.

• Drive improvements in system reliability, performance, scalability, and operational excellence.

• Establish and promote engineering standards, architectural best practices, and design principles.

• Help teams optimize development processes and improve software delivery effectiveness.

Mentor and Develop Engineers

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers across multiple teams.

• Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, accountability, and continuous learning.

• Support teams in adopting new technologies and expanding their technical capabilities.

• Act as a trusted advisor and technical resource for engineers, managers, and leaders.

Partner Across the Organization

• Collaborate with Product, Operations, Security, and Engineering teams to deliver business-critical solutions.

• Translate complex technical concepts into actionable recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Advocate for solutions that improve the experience of students, faculty, and staff.

What Makes You Successful

Technical Expertise

• Deep understanding of software engineering principles, system architecture, and software development best practices.

• Strong experience designing and building large-scale, distributed, and cloud-based applications.

• Expertise in software design patterns, system decomposition, fault tolerance, security, and performance optimization.

• Proven ability to design solutions that satisfy both functional and non-functional requirements.

Engineering Leadership

• Ability to influence technical direction without direct authority.

• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives and aligning multiple teams around technical solutions.

• Strong mentoring skills with a track record of helping engineers and teams grow.

• Ability to identify systemic issues and drive meaningful, long-term improvements.

Operational Excellence

• Experience building and operating highly available production systems.

• Strong understanding of observability, reliability engineering, incident management, and performance monitoring.

• Ability to use metrics and data to drive engineering decisions and platform improvements.

Communication & Collaboration

• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to engage effectively at every level of the organization.

• Skilled at translating technical complexity into clear business value.

• Brings solutions, builds consensus, and creates momentum around change.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience building and delivering complex software systems.

• Experience designing and developing modern web applications, APIs, and services.

• Strong experience with technologies such as Java, Angular version 12+, REST APIs, SQL, Git, and third-party integrations.

• Demonstrated success delivering large-scale technical initiatives and influencing engineering strategy.

Preferred Qualifications

Modern Technology Experience

• Experience with Java, Spring, Spring Boot, Angular (12+), SQL, Git, and AWS services.

• Strong understanding of cloud-native application design and microservices architecture.

• Experience with SaaS platforms and engineering solutions for scalability, reliability, and cost optimization.

Specialized Experience

• Experience architecting and operating enterprise-scale customer engagement platforms.

• Experience supporting online learning, education technology, or digital learning environments.

Additional Qualifications

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.

• Relevant cloud, architecture, or software engineering certifications.

Why Engineers Choose WGU

• Influence technical strategy and architecture at enterprise scale.

• Solve meaningful problems that directly impact student success.

• Work with modern cloud technologies and evolving platforms.

• Drive innovation, modernization, and engineering excellence.

• Mentor talented engineers and shape the future of the organization.

• Be part of a mission-driven company where your work creates measurable social impact.

Job Description Disclaimer: This position description provides the major duties/responsibilities, requirements and working conditions for the position. It is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current position, however management reserves the right to revise or change as necessary to meet organizational needs. Other responsibilities may be assigned when circumstances require.

This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.

Position & Application Details

Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; 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; and 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, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at [email protected].

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.