Principal Software Engineer

Rockstar is recruiting for a mission-driven nonprofit organization that empowers educators to build classrooms that respond to every student’s needs. Founded by two award-winning teachers, this organization leads a movement of educators in implementing a self-paced, mastery-based instructional model that leverages technology to foster human connection, authentic learning, and social-emotional growth. To date, the organization has reached over 70,000+ teachers through a free online course and 20,000+ teachers through a Virtual Mentorship Program from over 200 school, district, and state partners. The team is ambitious and idealistic, led by former classroom teachers, and is passionate about its work.

Why this role is needed :

For the past seven years, the organization has empowered educators to use technology more effectively. Rather than creating proprietary tech tools, the focus has been on helping teachers make better use of the tools they already have. Over time, the limitations of existing tools have become apparent, leading to the development of ideas for easy-to-use tech products that will help teachers implement self-paced, mastery-based instruction in their own classrooms. Funding has now been secured to build out a team to develop these tools.

An experienced, hands-on Principal Software Engineer is needed to transform the product vision into reality. This individual will be a foundational member of the new technical team, taking the lead on front-end and full stack web application development and creating intuitive, powerful tools that will directly support educators and students every day. In developing tech tools that solve the problems teachers face daily, there is an opportunity to make these teachers more effective, while making the evidence-based model more accessible to any educator who wants to help all of their students succeed. This role is critical to making that happen.

Key Responsibilities :

As Principal Software Engineer, this individual will be the technical lead for web application development—driving architecture, quality, accessibility, and performance for classroom-ready tools. The Principal Software Engineer will report to the Head of Engineering and collaborate closely with the Chief Innovation Officer to ship features that make a real difference for students and educators.

While the role will start out as the principal software developer working mostly independently, the plan is to build a high-quality tech team over time.

• Build new customer-facing products and features for a suite of educational technology tools.
• Develop robust, scalable, and elegant front-end and back-end systems, with a primary focus on TypeScript and modern web frameworks (Angular, Vue.js).
• Collaborate with the Head of Engineering and Chief Innovation Officer to translate user needs and product requirements into technical solutions.
• Adapt, integrate, and migrate legacy codebases into a modern unified education platform.
• Write clean, high-quality, and elegant code, adopting, establishing, and championing best practices for the engineering team.
• Contribute to the team's software and architecture, including application and infrastructure development, and deployment of core software platforms and tools.

It would also be helpful if :

You should apply if :

Compensation and Benefits :

A competitive compensation package is offered, as well as the opportunity to work in a fast-growing nonprofit that is on a mission to improve education worldwide. This includes :

Statement of Non-Discrimination :

The organization is committed to equal employment opportunity. Discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, or ethnicity is not tolerated. There is a strong commitment to hiring a diverse team and applications from traditionally under-represented backgrounds are encouraged.

(CID 2326)