Senior Principal Software Engineer (Team Lead)

About Nerdery and Being a “Nerd.”
Nerdery is a digital product consultancy. Much more than consultants, we’re allies and guides on our clients’ digital journey – helping them to grow their business and delight their customers through intuitive, thoughtfully designed technology. As true partners, we prepare our clients for the opportunities in front of them, help them achieve their goals, and quickly deliver value for their customers. We do this by solving problems in creative ways across strategy, design, and technology.

At Nerdery, we’re not defined by our job titles but by the impact we make. You’ll work directly and closely with some of the world’s best brands to help create innovative digital products that serve everyone. As Nerds, our insight, innovation, and expertise are celebrated, and our growth is not only encouraged but expected. Being a Nerd means stepping up and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.  We’re curious, fearless (well, not totally fearless – there are heights and spiders, after all), and always our authentic selves.

We are looking for a Senior Principal Software Engineer (Team Lead) to join our team!  We invite you to check out the details below and consider whether becoming a Nerd is the next step in your career journey.

The Technology Team Lead role bridges the gap between technical expertise and client needs. They utilize their extensive professional software engineering experience to oversee entire software development life-cycles while serving as the technical leader on multi-million dollar, high-profile, strategic GCP projects. Extremely proficient in their craft, the Technology Team Lead begins by designing a resilient solution and application architecture based on client business requirements and takes on the most challenging and complex custom software components during development. As the technical leader they provide technical guidance to other engineers, while also being effective communicators with non-technical stakeholders and team members. The Technology Team Lead is responsible for the overall technical quality, efficiencies, speed to impact of their current projects in addition to serving as the technical escalation point for other Nerdery projects. Internally, they provide the strategic technology roadmap of their specialization/subdomain. Technology Team Leads at Nerdery thrive on unraveling complex challenges and possess an insatiable curiosity for dissecting the latest technologies. 

What things you will do as a Nerd?

• Accountable to the entire technical lifecycle of a large-scale custom software project, including software, language, and framework decisions, task breakdown, and production readiness
• Technically evaluate, develop, and supervise a highly-effective software development team spanning multiple disciplines such as Java, Drupal CMS, AWS, DevOps, and Front-End
• Own the technical review process for project team members, providing ongoing feedback and recommendations
• Manage the software delivery process by proactively identifying complex problems, developing mitigation approaches, and documenting decisions
• Recommend and justify modern architectural strategies for clients’ technical roadmaps, with a focus on AWS, Drupal, Python, and React-based decoupled Front-End applications
• Partner with develop leads to serve as the architect for multiple software engineering squads
• Foster cross-functional collaboration as the primary technical liaison between engineering and other project disciplines (Design, Quality, Project Management, Strategy, Product, etc.).
• Participate in the internal leadership of their respective domain, contributing to strategic direction, assisting with initiatives, and maintaining coding best practices
• Explain complex concerns across multiple levels of abstraction and audiences
• Assess the technical skills of prospective candidates and provide recommendations to hiring managers, including designing and implementing technical skills assessments
• Provide ad-hoc technical support to other practitioners in the domain as needed
• Assist with sales requests by providing technical recommendations, estimates, and creating reusable estimation templates
• Be a representative and advocate of Nerdery’s depth of talent by regularly publishing articles, blog posts, or whitepapers, and/or contributing to GCP related open source projects, and/or speaking at industry conferences to share knowledge, insights, and best practices in software and technology.

What Skills Will Help You Be A Successful Nerd?

• Undergraduate or graduate degree in a computer-related field or coding bootcamp certificate
• 15+ years of software development experience
• 6+ years of software architecture experience, including familiarity with modern design patterns 
• Proven track record of successfully leading and delivering multi-million dollar projects
• Extensive experience with CMS driven applications (preferably Drupal) - both traditional and decoupled architectures - with React ecosystem driven front-end UIs (e.g. Next.js).
• Solid Java back-end experience, with a familiarity with Kotlin
• Solid Python experience, including familiarity with Flask and Django based applications
• Demonstrated comprehension of complex software using expert-level understanding of code patterns, application architecture, and best practices.
• Experience with version control systems such as Git
• Demonstrated expertise in using and implementing CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, or similar platforms
• Ability to design and optimize CI/CD pipelines for various applications, including web applications, microservices, and data pipelines
• Exceptional verbal and visual technical communication skills and additional the ability to explain complex technical problems to diverse audiences
• Strong systems architecture experience
• Measurable improvement of your developments team’s quality and effectiveness
• In-depth understanding of the software development process and the ability to maintain an iterative approach throughout the project lifecycle.
• Advocate for the proper usage of AI tools to increase delivery efficiency 

Preferred Qualifications

• Proven ability to design and manage an enterprise architecture governance process
• Proficiency in using IaC tools like Terraform to manage infrastructure.
• Execution of multiple data migration and analytics projects
• A Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Are We the Right Fit For You?

The best way to get the scoop on whether Nerdery is the right place for you is to chat with current Nerds.  We would be delighted to have a conversation with you and share insight into what it’s really like to work at our organization and if it’s a place where you can thrive.  Our interview process will provide you ample opportunity to talk with other team members and assess whether the role is a good fit for your next chapter.  Take the first step and apply today – our Talent Advocates will then reach out to you to get the ball rolling!

Location Options: St. Louis, MO

Must be legally authorized to work within the country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status.

Nerdery is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state and local fair employment practice laws. Nerdery strictly prohibits and does not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants or any other covered persons because of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender or transsexual individual), pregnancy, marital status, familial status, age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, past, current or prospective service in the uniformed services, genetic information, membership or activity in a local human rights commission, status with regard to public assistance or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law. All employees, other workers and representatives of Nerdery are prohibited from engaging in unlawful discrimination. Nerdery will ensure that all employment practices are free of such discrimination. Such employment practices include, but are not limited to: hiring, promotion, demotion, transfer, recruitment or recruitment advertising, selection, layoff, disciplinary action, termination, compensation, benefits, selection for training, including apprenticeship and other terms and conditions of employment. Nerdery will also provide reasonable accommodation to applicants and employees with disabilities pursuant to all applicable laws.