Senior Software Engineer

Underpin; Lichtenvoorde; Remote; EUR 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Full healthcare coverage

Generous vacation and parental leave

Flexible work options

Welcoming office environment

Work-life balance

Job summary

An innovative educational technology company in Gelderland, Netherlands, is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join its collaborative team. In this role, you'll develop impactful features, mentor team members, and improve educational tools for students and teachers. We're looking for someone excited about technology and advocacy for equitable learning experiences, with strong technical fundamentals. The company offers a competitive salary, full healthcare coverage, generous leave policies, and flexible work options. Join us to make a difference in the educational landscape.

Qualifications

• Strong technical fundamentals and a willingness to learn new technologies.
• Experience in mentoring engineering team members.
• Ability to work independently and manage technical debt.

Responsibilities

• Plan and build impactful features and systems.
• Refactor features based on user feedback.
• Mentor and support other engineers.
• Collaborate with design and product to scope and define specs.
• Mentor engineers and help interview new team members.
• Contribute to the engineering strategy and communicate the team’s progress.

Skills

Collaboration

Technical fundamentals

Mentoring

Tools

Elm

Typescript

Ruby on Rails

Docker

MySQL

Redshift

Job description

Our vision is that every student, regardless of their circumstances or background, has the opportunity to set and realize an ambitious dream for themselves. Our mission is to re‑imagine learning so it's student centered, enabling students to succeed in school and life.

Espark provides standards‑based games, videos, and digital activities, students work independently to succeed at their own level and pace.

The Role

As Senior Software Engineer, you’ll join our team of generalists and report to the Director of Engineering and be directly responsible for making the lives of teachers, students, and neighboring eSpark teams better through the software you ship.

We believe that excitement to learn, a readiness to work together collaboratively, and good technical fundamentals are more important to success at eSpark than past experience with specific technologies — we are always ready to pair and to train new engineers on the technologies we use. The applications our students and teachers use are built with Elm and Typescript on the frontend and Ruby on Rails on the backend (all covered by tests), running on top of Docker and with data stored in MySQL and Redshift.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll focus on three areas:

Delivery

• Plan and build impactful and substantial new features and systems
• Make our product more resilient in low‑bandwidth environments (which often affect low‑income students)
• Refactor new and existing features in response to user feedback and metrics
• Work closely with design and product to refine and scope the product specs in the discovery research phase where we talk directly with users
• Make good use of your autonomy to pay down technical debt, create new internal tools, and make better developer experiences
• Improve how we adapt each student’s learning needs and styles dynamically to keep them on track
• Build better tools for teachers to measure outcomes for small group or individual tutoring and help students where most needed
• Scope and create ways to inform and engage parents in their students’ learning at the right moments (and without requiring significant time commitments parents might not be able to make)
• Address obstacles proactively so the team maintains a predictable and sustainable pace

People

• Mentor other members of the engineering team to help them grow as engineers and as people
• Be a positive role model who your peers want to continue working with
• Provide perspective on team practices
• Help source and interview candidates to grow a talented, collaborative, ego‑free team

Technical Strategy

• Participate in collaborative, sound technical decision‑making by the engineering team
• Tell the “story” of the engineering team, connecting its work to the larger mission of the company
• Understand how technology reflects and amplifies biases and power structures to guide decisions so that our products are safe and equitable for our students and teachers

Benefits

• Competitive salary and stock options
• Full healthcare coverage (including vision, dental, and mental health benefits)
• Generous vacation and parental leave policies
• Flexible work‑from‑home and remote work options
• Welcoming (post‑pandemic) office environment and choice of technical equipment
• Work‑life balance, respecting nights and weekends

If these sound like exciting opportunities, and if you’re filled with questions and ready to dig into the data behind everything you’ve just read, we look forward to talking with you!

At eSpark, we believe all people—adults and students alike—deserve respect for who they are. We work hard to make eSpark an environment in which everyone can thrive and succeed.

We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.