Senior Software Engineer II

At Curriculum Associates, we believe in the potential of every child and are changing the face of education technology with award-winning learning programs like i-Ready that serve a third of the nation’s K–8 students. For more than 50 years, our commitment to making classrooms better places, serving educators, and supporting accessible learning experiences for all students has driven the continuous improvement of our innovative programs. Our team of more than 2,500 employees is composed of lifelong learners who stand behind this mission, working tirelessly to serve the educational community with world-class programs and support every day.

Your Impact

• Design technical solutions for complex features, services, or systems that balance simplicity, accessibility, scalability, security, and long-term maintainability, and clearly communicate architectural decisions and tradeoffs to partners.

• Translate product and business requirements into clear technical problem statements and execution plans, including identifying assumptions, constraints, risks, and edge cases so the team can deliver outcomes that align with user and business needs.

• Implement and review code for complex features and cross-cutting changes, setting a strong example for code quality, readability, and maintainability, and improving overall standards through thoughtful code review.

• Shape and lead planning for significant features or initiatives by breaking down ambiguous problem spaces into executable work, sequencing tasks, identifying dependencies and risks, and creating realistic estimates so team members can coordinate effectively and deliver reliably.

• Drive quality practices by defining, advocating, and implementing appropriate testing strategies, automation, reviews, and validation approaches that reduce regressions and improve reliability across the lifecycle of a feature and system.

• Diagnose and resolve complex issues in production and non-production environments, including ambiguous or multi-system failures, and drive root-cause analysis and durable follow-up actions that protect long-term system health.

• Improve and extend Engineering tooling, automation, responsible AI-assisted workflows, and personal skills to increase effectiveness and efficiencies for self and team, including proposing or building tools, workflows, and integrations that reduce manual effort, improve developer experience, and delivery speed.

• Mentor and coach other Engineers through pairing, design reviews, feedback, and knowledge sharing, helping others build skills, judgment, and confidence while maintaining a positive, inclusive team environment.

• Influence cross-team decisions and alignment by framing options, tradeoffs, and impacts, collaborating with stakeholders across product, design, data, operations, and engineering to align on scope, tradeoffs, and status so stakeholders have clear expectations and work lands successfully.

• Contribute to team and engineering culture by modeling effective communication, collaboration, personal growth, and accountability; participating in or leading community initiatives (such as hiring efforts, technical talks, or engineering working groups); and helping improve shared processes.

Required Job Skills and Abilities

• Technical design and architecture Ability to independently design straightforward solutions for complex features and reason about system behavior across frontend, services, and persistent layers.

• Programming, debugging, and quality Proficiency in at least one modern programming language and ecosystem, writing reliable and scalable production code, tests, and observability features to ensure quality.

• Delivery and operational excellence Ability to consistently deliver complex features reliably by sequencing tasks, estimating accurate workloads, communicating and making informed tradeoffs, and contributing to incident response and follow-through.

• Collaboration, communication, and leadership Ability to communicate clearly with stakeholders, collaborate across teams, and mentor or influence other Engineers.

• Tooling, automation, AI, and product understanding Experience using and improving developer tools, CI/CD, automation, and AI tools with high quality results.

Required Education and Experience:

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field; or a combination of education and experience that provides the skills and abilities to perform the role effectively.

Experience

• Typically 8+ years of professional software engineering experience (or equivalent experience).

• Strong technical background in backend development, preferably with Java, Spring Boot, or similar technologies.

• Familiarity with, microservices architecture, and cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure).

• Experience working with distributed systems or SaaS platforms.

• Hands-on experience in database design and optimization (e.g., SQL, NoSQL).

• Demonstrated experience leading end-to-end outcomes for significant features or systems, including design, implementation, testing, deployment, and ongoing support.

• Experience working in a collaborative, cross-functional environment with product, project management, design, and other partner teams.

Preferred Qualifications (Not Required)

• Experience with large-scale, distributed, or highly available systems.

• Experience contributing to or leading community initiatives such as mentoring programs, technical talks, internal working groups, or hiring efforts.

• Experience working in the education, or related domains.

Benefits and Pay Range:

Pay Range – This role’s range is $93,250 - $166,250. The wage range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that Curriculum Associates considers in making compensation decisions based on our Compensation Philosophy. Actual base pay within that range will vary based upon several factors including, but not limited to, prior experience and relevant skill sets. At Curriculum Associates, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances for each case. This role is also eligible to participate in the company bonus plan. The Company recognizes that minimum wage varies by location and will ensure all compensation decisions comply with applicable state and local laws.

Benefits – Benefit eligible employees (and their families) are covered by medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance. Employees can enroll in our company’s 401k plan and receive an employer match. Employees have access to a flexible vacation and sick policy in addition to twelve paid holidays and a winter office closure between Christmas and New Year's, as well as a number of additional perks and benefits.

Travel: Minimum travel required between our sites and or for training purposes (<10%). 

Working Environment: Typical Office environment. 

Application Deadline: August 31, 2026. This is subject to close earlier if there is a high volume of applicants or a qualified hire is made.