As the Principal Engineer at Illuminate Literacy, you will serve a critical role in our mission to eradicate illiteracy. Reporting directly to the Head of Engineering, you will have the opportunity to work on a variety of exciting projects, including the development of our learning platform, the enhancement of our personalized learning engine, and the construction of our data analysis pipeline. Working closely with the Product and R&D teams, you will architect solutions, and also have the flexibility to delve into the code and problem-solve when required. We're looking for a versatile, proactive, and solution-oriented individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment and has a keen eye for detail. Your role will not only involve building and improving our systems but also creating a scalable architecture that will support our growth. Your work will have a direct impact on our mission, helping children around the world to improve their reading skills and opening doors to new opportunities.

About The Organization

We are on a mission to unlock the great reader in every child to end illiteracy in our country -- centering the experiences of Black, Latino, and Native American students and students experiencing poverty. We are developing research-based, identity-affirming PK-8+ digital literacy tools that leverage student uniquenesses to help every child master the foundational reading skills needed to become strong, confident readers. We’re currently hiring our founding team of mission-driven individuals committed to helping us develop a scalable, impactful reading product that helps us eradicate illiteracy in America.

Illuminate Literacy is fiscally sponsored by Cambiar Education, a 501c3 that supports transformative leaders of public school systems and educational entrepreneurs to develop innovative solutions that disrupt the patterns of educational inequity.

🔥 Key Highlights 🔥

Two fully digital prototypes built and currently being tested with a dozen schools and out-of-school partners; MVP kindergarten offering will be released fall 2023
Fully-funded sister R&D organization, AERDF Reading Reimagined, to explore major unknowns in literacy learning for priority students and to bridge cutting-edge research to practice
Founding team with deep expertise in teaching kids to read, on technology, at scale, comprised of literacy experts, practitioners, designers, engineers, and former education systems leaders. Founded and led by Rebecca Kockler, former Assistant Superintendent of Academic Content for the Louisiana Department of Education and developer of the nationally recognized ELA Guidebooks
Extensive relationships with major systems leaders across the country requesting to be co-designers and first adopters; 100% retention of current partners year over year
Commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and to an inclusive R&D and product development approach that centers Black, Latino and Native American students and those experiencing poverty

Requirements

10+ years of experience in software development, with a strong background in both front-end and back-end technologies
Experienced, both deep and wide, with front and back-end languages and frameworks including ReactJS, Node.js, AWS, and Terraform
Strong understanding of database systems, including relational and time-series databases
Demonstrated ability to architect and model mission critical solutions
Experience with AI, data modeling, and NLP
A strong default for Systems Thinking - breaking problems into manageable pieces, understanding how the pieces interact and create an integrated, functioning, whole system when assembled
Structured, collaborative, and clear written and oral communication skills, especially in conveying analytical concepts to cross-functional teammates with expertise in disciplines outside of traditional tech
Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills
A desire to make the world a better place through technology and reading education
Expertise in applying user insights, data, and statistical analyses to inform decisions
A track record as a voracious, curious, and active learner
A knack for self-starting, rolling up your sleeves to do the work, being resourceful and innovative in finding answers in an ambiguous situations
Experience leading teams through ambiguity and high stakes trade off decisions
Humility and kindness towards others and themselves, acknowledging limitations and being open to learning from mistakes and feedback

What You’ll Do:

Provide technical leadership and guide the development of our web-based platform, ensuring scalability, performance, and reliability
Partner with Product and Technology subject-matter experts to elicit and translate product and business requirements into technology solutions
Provide technical leadership and guidance to engineering contributors and supporting vendors for product-level architecture and design
Architect and design robust, maintainable, and scalable software solutions, with a focus on both front-end and back-end development
Contribute to development of strategic future-state technology and domain architectures
Review ongoing engineering to ensure consistent evolution toward the strategic future-state architecture
Develop reference implementations of future-state architecture components to jump start and standardize engineering teams’ product development work
Ensure recommended architectural designs and patterns are adhered to as part of delivery
Recognize and implement patterns that enable architecture and implementation simplification
Identify risks, opportunities, and solutions that influence strategy considering all aspects of a product or solution (costs, privacy, data retention, security, etc.)
Use your thought leadership and strong communication skills to influence and inspire engineering teams to achieve higher levels of technical innovation
Maintain an ongoing awareness of emerging technologies and industry trends to inform technical domain strategy and direction.

Benefits

Salary range of $160,000 - $185,000 per annum
Competitive medical, dental, vision benefits
Opportunity to work remotely for a mission-driven company full of change-makers
401k with 4% guaranteed match
Work environment that values balance and harmony with a deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion
Opportunity to travel and meet your team members in-person 2x per year

Illuminate Literacy

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Principal Engineer