Senior Software Developer (Backend)

Coursera; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Tuition reimbursement

Health insurance

Parental leave (16 weeks)

Stock options

Flexible work locations

Make-a-thon events

Job summary

Coursera is seeking a Staff Software Developer on the Monetization team to own service architecture, API development, and data modeling at scale. You’ll design scalable microservices using Java, MySQL, DynamoDB, gRPC, GraphQL, Kafka, and modern backend stacks.

You will balance hands-on coding with technical leadership, collaborating with product and engineering to shape architecture and business outcomes, drive data-informed decisions, and ensure reliable, high‑performing platforms for

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience.
• Experience designing microservices and storage layers at scale.
• Experience with API design, system architecture, and data architecture.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable backend systems and microservices.
• Lead architecture decisions and data modeling on the Monetization team.
• Analyze metrics and drive product decisions through A/B testing.
• Collaborate with Product Managers to translate requirements into technical designs.
• Set up monitoring and testing for APIs and services.

Skills

Backend systems design

API design

Data modeling

Microservices architecture

Tools

Java

Play

Scala

MySQL

Cassandra

Solr

Kafka

Job description

• As a Staff Software Developer on the Monetization team, you’ll lead technical initiatives and take significant ownership over service architecture, product API development, and data modeling. You’ll design and iterate at startup speed, working with modern Java, MySQL, DynamoDB, gRPC, GraphQL, Kafka, and microservices architecture. In this role, you’ll balance hands‑on development with technical leadership, collaborating across product and engineering to shape both technical decisions and business outcomes
• Software Engineering
• Core competency for designing, developing, and maintaining backend systems at scale
• Technical Design
• Essential for architecting scalable microservices and data modeling solutions
• Agile Product Development
• Essential for fast‑moving team environment with frequent deployments and iterative development cycles
• Design and implement scalable systems and infrastructures that support Coursera’s backend services
• Measure your work thoroughly, analyze results, and generate hypotheses to drive new product changes through A/B testing
• Set up monitoring and testing of your APIs and services to understand real‑time health and performance of your products
• Participate in product discussions by proposing technical approaches and influencing roadmap decisions through data and system insights
• Collaborate with Product Managers and stakeholders to shape requirements, clarify tradeoffs, and translate business goals into technical designs
• Drive data‑informed decisions by analyzing metrics and experiment results to validate product hypotheses

Benefits

• Coursera covers the cost of tuition so you can earn a free master’s degree and develop new skills. That’s on top of free, lifelong access to courses and certificates on the platform
• We offer medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents. Plus, free access to counseling and mental health services
• Get up to 16 weeks of fully‑paid parental leave when you grow your family and bring a new child into your life
• We host Make‑a‑thon events twice a year to promote community and innovation. During Make‑a‑thon, you’ll dedicate time to attend workshops, work on passion projects, and pursue ideas outside of your day‑to‑day work
• Take paid time off when you need it. We have time off policies that promote flexibility so you can tailor your work schedule when life calls
• Our flexibility extends to where you work. You can choose to work from home, work from one of our offices, or try a combination of the two
• Employees earn company stock, so you can own what we build together and share in our success

Requirements

• Experience working in fast‑moving team environments with frequent deployments
• Demonstrated history of building and launching products with understanding of API design, system architecture, and data architecture
• Background in using data and metrics to inform technical and product decisions
• 7+ years of experience working in a software engineering role
• Experience designing highly‑scaled and performant microservices and storage layers using languages and infrastructure such as Java, Play, Scala, MySQL, Cassandra, Solr, or Kafka