Software Engineer III (Evaluation)

Quick Facts

• Role: Software Engineer III (Evaluation)
• Focus: End-to-end ownership of features across a Rails-based educator observation and evaluation platform
• Product: Ruby on Rails application hosted on AWS, with AI-powered capabilities

Description

You will design, build, ship, and support features for the Evaluation application, spanning the Rails codebase, AI-powered educator workflows, data integrations, and the AWS infrastructure that runs it. The role emphasizes reliability, privacy and accessibility compliance, modernizing the product, strengthening automated testing, and mentoring teammates.

Responsibilities

• Build and support features from product conversation through release and production support
• Integrate and improve AI-powered features using LLMs in real user workflows, including prompt design, safeguards, and quality checks
• Build and maintain reliable data integrations with other systems, ensuring data quality
• Lead roadmap technical improvements: simplify configuration, reduce technical debt, modernize parts of the application, and sequence delivery
• Write clean, testable, secure, maintainable code and strengthen automated testing practices
• Build and operate in AWS using CI/CD and infrastructure as code; troubleshoot production issues end to end
• Ensure FERPA, state student privacy, and WCAG accessibility requirements are met as part of normal delivery
• Use AI-assisted development tools throughout planning, coding, testing, code review, and documentation—while validating outputs
• Help shape how the team uses AI in the development lifecycle with shared conventions, reusable prompts, and guardrails
• Partner with Product Management on requirements, backlog refinement, and sprint planning; implement scalable, secure solutions
• Mentor teammates and write clear documentation to help others operate confidently in the system

Requirements

• 5+ years building and operating production web applications, including recent hands-on Ruby on Rails
• Strong relational database skills (MySQL or similar): schema design, indexing, query performance, and safe migrations in a multi-tenant application
• Hands-on automated testing in Rails (e.g., RSpec) at unit and integration levels
• Hands-on AWS experience: deploying, running, and debugging applications with containers, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure as code
• Secure web development fundamentals (e.g., OWASP Top 10, authentication/authorization, input validation, secrets management)
• Daily hands-on use of AI-assisted development tools (beyond autocomplete) for multi-step work
• Ability to direct AI tools with clear specs and context; validate results with tests and code review
• Sound judgment on AI and data safety, especially for student and educator data
• Track record of owning ambiguous work end to end
• Comfort improving a mature codebase without stalling delivery
• Excellent written and verbal communication for async, cross-time-zone collaboration
• Experience with Agile practices (backlog refinement, sprint planning, stand-ups, retrospectives)
• Core availability during US Central Time business hours
• Authorized to work in the United States
• Bachelor’s degree in CS/Software Engineering or related field, or equivalent practical experience

Benefits

• Remote role with core availability during US Central Time business hours
• Small, tight-knit team with real ownership and frequent deployments using feature flags
• AI across the whole lifecycle: AI-assisted tools integrated into planning, building, testing, review, and release
• Privacy-first approach to handling student and educator data
• Salary range: $135,000–$155,000