The Role
Design and maintain scalable back-end features and APIs using the MERN stack, manage AWS environments, and mentor junior engineers while ensuring best practices in DevOps and security.
Summary Generated by Built In
This is a six-month contract role with the possibility of being brought on full time at the end of the contract.
Position Overview
iMentor seeks a Senior Full Stack Engineer with key focus on back-end application development and DevOps infrastructure to design, build, and optimize scalable solutions across our ecosystem.
This role combines high-level software engineering (MERN stack) with cloud infrastructure design (AWS ECS, Fargate, Lambda queries, CloudFront) to deliver enterprise-grade features and maintain secure, high-performing systems. The engineer will report to iMentor’s Senior Director of Engineering and collaborate with Product and Design teams. You’ll have the opportunity to shape the evolution of a national platform serving 8,000+ students and mentors.
About the Platform
The iMentor proprietary platform powers a dynamic ecosystem that includes volunteer intake, learning spaces, intelligent automation, and integrations with internal services. The Senior Engineer will drive innovation in system architecture, lead performance optimization efforts, and ensure high availability and security across all environments.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain complex back-end features using Node.js and Express, integrating with MongoDB Atlas and other data services.
- Develop secure and scalable APIs to support web and mobile applications.
- Ensure code quality through automated testing, peer reviews, and adherence to best practices.
- Implement caching, query optimization, and performance improvements at the application level.
- Mentor junior staff with patience and curiosity, helping others grow
- Play a key role in architectural decisions, collaborate closely to translate needs into technical solutions, and proactively identify and communicate tradeoffs and risks.
- Refactor legacy code for improved performance, maintainability, and scalability.
- Manage and optimize AWS environments including ECS, Fargate, Lambda queries, and CloudFront.
- Oversee CI/CD pipelines, containerized deployments (Docker), and infrastructure automation.
- Monitor application health and performance using New Relic or CloudWatch; respond to production incidents with steadiness, efficiency, and clear thinking.
- Champion best practices for cloud security, compliance, and cost management.
- Lead DevOps improvements such as blue/green deployments, auto-scaling, and resilience strategies.
- Value inclusive collaboration as much as technical excellence.
Qualifications
- 7+ years of professional engineering experience, including 3+ years in a senior or lead role.
- Strong expertise in MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React.js, Node.js) with a focus on back-end development.
- Experience designing and maintaining secure, high-performance APIs for production systems.
- Strong knowledge of AWS services (ECS, Fargate, Lambda, CouldFront) and DevOps best practices.
- Proficiency with containerization (Docker), orchestration, and CI/CD automation.
- Linux administration and scripting skills (Bash or equivalent).
- Familiarity with secure handling of PII and compliance standards.
- AWS Solutions Architect or DevOps Engineer certification preferred.
Bonus skills
- Experience with Python for automation or API scripting.
- Familiarity with machine learning/AI frameworks.
- Knowledge of Redshift or other analytical database systems.
Compensation and Logistics
- Salary: $160,000/year, prorated based on the duration of employment.
- Contract Term: Six-month contract with the possibility of extension or conversion to a permanent role
- Up to 100% employer-funded comprehensive medical and dental coverage
- Employee-paid vision plan offered
- Vacation accrual based on 18 days annually, paid holidays + your birthday + one floating holiday, Holiday closure between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, plus paid Sick days accrual
- 401K match up to 4%
- Flexible Home/Office/School working arrangement
- Pre-tax commuter benefits
- Dependent day care and healthcare flexible spending plans
- 1 hour of wellness time off per week for wellness activities of your choosing
- Flexible personnel wellness budget for reimbursements or marketplace purchases
- Work Location: Hybrid; candidates within a commutable distance to NYC are preferred. Alignment with iMentor’s work location policy is required.
- Work Schedule: Flexibility to collaborate across multiple time zones, including with offshore teams in Eastern Europe, is necessary.
- We welcome applicants from non-traditional engineering backgrounds.
About iMentor
iMentor believes that all students deserve an equitable chance to pursue their ambitions. Our program builds authentic mentoring relationships in order to bring greater equity to our students’ educational journeys. Through these long-term relationships, first-generation, students of color from underserved communities increase their access to the knowledge, experiences, and resources required to succeed in college or their post-secondary pathway of choice, and to pursue their career ambitions.
By partnering with public schools serving primarily first-generation college students and providing every student in the school with a mentor, iMentor supports students’ post-secondary journeys with a level of depth and personalization that cannot be matched by traditional advising models. iMentor’s students are 37% more likely to enroll in college and are graduating college at double the rates of their peers.
iMentor’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
We believe that people of all backgrounds deserve equal access to educational opportunities. Recognizing that our country’s history of racism and systemic oppression continues to drive educational disparities for students of color, we give special focus to addressing the economic and racial divides that impact the communities we serve. We are committed to the collective work and intentional investment necessary to consistently move in the direction of educational equity and inclusion. Learn more at www.iMentor.org.
How to Apply
Visit www.imentor.org/jobs to submit a resume describing your interest in and qualifications for this position, as well as a sample of something you’ve built (please submit a public Github URI or portfolio link with snippets on your contribution to the project). Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
iMentor is an Equal Opportunity Employer
Top Skills
Aws Ecs
Cloudfront
Cloudwatch
Docker
Express
Fargate
Lambda
Mern Stack
MongoDB
New Relic
Node.js
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The Company
What We Do
iMentor builds mentoring relationships that empower students to graduate high school, succeed in college, and achieve their ambitions. Since 1999, iMentor has connected more than 30,000 students with mentors. In the next 5 years, iMentor will scale to serve even more mentor-mentee pairs. In New York City, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay area, iMentor partners with public schools to ensure every student in the schools receives a mentor. Across the country, iMentor provides nonprofit partners the tools to run their own high-impact programs in the iMentor model. This includes a technology platform, a research-based curriculum, and program analysis tools.
iMentor has been recognized through funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and the Robin Hood Foundation, and is a subgrantee of the federal Social Innovation Fund. iMentor is one of the most innovative and quickly growing organizations of its kind in the country. As a team, we are mission-focused, results-oriented, passionate, and fun. And we’re proud to have been named one of the Best Nonprofits to Work For by Opportunity Knocks and The Nonprofit Times.
