Staff Software Engineer

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co; Dublin; On-site; EUR 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead a high-impact, cross-functional team of 5–10 engineers in an Agile environment.

You will own design and development of next-generation eLearning platforms and student-facing experiences, setting technical direction and mentoring junior engineers. The role emphasizes architectural excellence, service development, and industry engagement, with a focus on delivering scalable, maintainable software in a fast-paced educational

Qualifications

• 10+ years software development experience.
• Expert level proficiency in developing service applications.
• Strong knowledge of contemporary micro-services design.
• Experience leading distributed teams in Agile environments.
• Excellent understanding of software development lifecycle and CI/CD practices.
• Fluency in English communication is essential.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical delivery of complex projects from design through production.
• Act as Engineering leader and influencer for a team of 5–10 engineers.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to solve problems and deliver incremental value.
• Continuous improvement through operational excellence, data-driven analysis, and code reviews.
• Guide architecture and technology choices for scalable solutions.
• Mentor engineers and promote best practices across the group.

Skills

System Architecture

Web Design

Gang of 4 patterns

Agile Development

Self-Starter

Analytical & Problem-Solving

Team Collaboration

Written & Verbal Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

AWS

Docker

Redis

Kafka

Jenkins

Terraform

SQS

SNS

Job description

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Here at HMH we are staffing new, small, self-contained teams of Engineers with people who love solving problems and building high-quality software products and services. We are looking for people with a range of skills, who can contribute by bringing the right tools to the job; we want teams full of innovative, eager software professionals to build the products that will transform our industry.

Our focus is on producing fantastic educational software to meet the challenges facing teachers and learners today. We design and build applications to enable and support a wide range of next generation learning experiences and our applications and services are already used by millions.

We use a wide range of technologies within our services platform teams, that can make our learning tools and content available to all our products. If you want to make a difference in the lives of students and teachers and understand what it takes to deliver high quality software, we would love to talk to you about this opportunity.

The Opportunity – Staff Software Engineer:

The Staff Software Engineer is a technical leader and owner of our highest impact software projects.

They will be an Engineering leader and influencer for a multi-talented team of 5 to 10 Engineers, working within an Agile development environment.

The Staff Software Engineer has a background of exceptional technical competence, impeccable problem-solving skills and a proven track record in leading and influencing others to deliver best in class solutions.

They will be responsible for leading the design and development of products from inception to production, and beyond.

Their key focus will be on our next-generation eLearning platform "Ed" and on the student-facing, interactive, learning experiences it delivers.

The Staff Software Engineer will set the teams’ bar for technical excellence, acting as an Engineering role model and mentoring Software and Senior Software Engineers.

They will be subject matter experts in service development practices and ideally represent HMH in industry groups and open-source communities. They will improve technology practices and methodologies within the group, whilst contributing to the evolution of culture and communication within the organization.

Staff Software Engineers are excellent communicators and great team players, with an added ability to communicate and pitch ideas, concepts and technical architectures to senior stakeholders.

COMPETENCIES :

• System Architecture, Analysis & Design.
• Web Design and implementation.
• Gang of 4 patterns and SOLID principles.
• Agile Development.
• Innovative and Resourceful Self-Starter.
• Excellent Analytical and Problem-Solving Skills.
• Strong Team Skills.
• Excellent Written and Communication Skills.

Duties & Responsibilities:

• Lead and Contribute to the technical delivery of component design, development, and maintenance, on complex projects .
• Engineering leader and influencer for the development team of 5-10 Engineers .
• Work collaboratively within a cross-functional, agile development team to solve problems, deliver incrementally, transfer knowledge and contribute to overall product architecture .
• Adopt an Operational Excellence approach to continuous improvement - test, analyse data and improve constantly .
• Program-level solution design/technology and product evaluations .
• Understand HMH goals around quality and Engineering discipline, participate in code reviews at the team level .
• Applying subject matter expertise on improving technology practices, standards, and methodologies within the group.
• Communicate clearly and concisely across the organization.
• Will report to your engineering manager on all architectur al improvements and technology practices, standards, and methodologies .

IT Skills :

• AWS .

Languages :

• C# .
• .NET .
• Java
• NodeJS .
• SQL, PL/SQL .
• Terraform .

Data/Storage

• AWS DynamoDB, S3, RDS .
• Oracle .

Other Technologies

• Docker .
• Redis .
• AWS S3, SNS, SQS .
• Kafka .
• Jenkins .

Knowledge & Experience:

• 10+ years software development experience and a bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field .
• Expert level proficiency in developing service applications..
• Strong knowledge of Con-tenderised micro-services.
• C#, DotNet Core, Docker, Redis, SQS, SNS with docker service monitoring, logging and tracin g tools .
• Strong knowledge of functional and Performance tests tools.
• Experience of Gatling with Scala and the services on AWS architecture .
• Deep understanding of popular design patterns and their appropriate application.
• Experience with Unit testing frameworks .
• Exceptional technical competence that includes a portfolio of thought leadership and individual technical accomplishments.
• Proven track record as an Engineering leader in initiating, architecting, and building distributed, scalable solutions using modern Agile software development methodologies.
• A solid understanding of the software development lifecycle and tools including Source Control, Rapid Prototyping, Continuous Integration.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills with fluency in English essential .