Lead Software Engineer

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority seeks a Lead Software Engineer to collaborate with partner teams, providing technical guidance and owning team-level architecture while elevating reliability and engineering practices.

You will mentor engineers, drive complex subsystem design, and help shape roadmaps in coordination with UX and PM. This role requires strong leadership and a track record in high‑reliability systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution.
• Six years of relevant professional experience in modern software engineering practices, including technical leadership and system architecture.
• Experience leading end-to-end delivery of complex projects.
• Proficiency in at least two programming languages from the TIObE top 20.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical design for subsystem-level components and services.
• Architect complex systems and guide team members through implementation.
• Reduce systemic reliability risks within team boundaries.
• Mentor junior engineers and drive technical decisions for team-owned systems.
• Collaborate with UX, PM and other team members to shape team roadmap and technical strategy.
• Participate in retrospectives to improve delivery.
• Ensure adherence to best practices, policies, and cross-functional standards.
• Debug cloud-hosted production systems using observability tools.
• Review code for correctness, performance, and reliability.
• Participate in on-call rotation and contribute to infrastructure improvements.
• Contribute to organization-wide infrastructure and ways of work.

Skills

Two TIObE top-20 languages

CI/CD

Observability

On-call readiness

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Elixir

AWS

Job description

The Lead Software Engineer collaborates closely with partner teams to solve user and business challenges. The role upholds software engineering excellence in civic technology operating within the specific constraints of the MBTA. The Lead Software Engineer provides technical guidance for other members of the team, leads work on complex or ambiguous components, and helps simplify complexity across team-owned systems. This role elevates team productivity, mentors engineers, and takes ownership of team-level architecture, system reliability, and software engineering best practices.

• Lead technical design for subsystem-level components and services for the team.
• Architect complex systems and guide team members through implementation.
• Reduce systemic reliability risks within team boundaries.
• Mentor junior engineers and drive technical decisions for team-owned systems.
• Collaborate with applicable User Experience (UX), Product Managers (PM) and other team members to contribute toward shaping the team roadmap and team processes as well as contribute to technical strategy decisions.
• Participate in team and incident retrospectives to improve how the team delivers.
• Ensure implementation of software engineering best practices and adherence to organizational policies, compliance requirements, and cross-functional standards impacting team operations.
• Debug cloud-hosted production systems using observability tools.
• Collaborate with team members to review code for correctness, performance, and reliability.
• Participate in on-call rotation of technology systems and services as needed.
• Contribute to organization-wide infrastructure (e.g. continuous integration pipelines, shared applications) and ways of work (e.g. hiring, cross-team collaboration).
• Perform all other duties and projects that may be assigned.

Additional responsibilities may include focus on one or more departments or locations.

Supervision

• No direct reports.

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution.
• Six (6) years of relevant professional experience in modern software engineering practices, including technical leadership, system architecture, and designing subsystem-level components and services.
• Experience leading end-to-end delivery of complex projects requiring ingenuity and creativity, often requiring multiple team members to execute.
• Demonstrated proficiency in at least two (2) programming languages from the TIOBE top 20 (https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/)
• Experience resolving production incidents and monitoring system health, including on-call, incident response.
• Experience with CI/CD and code review processes.
• Experience with logging, monitoring, observability, and cloud-hosted production systems.
• Ability to participate in on-call rotation of technology systems and services as needed.
• As part of the selection process, candidates will be asked to complete and pass job-related technical assessments, which may include a software design diagramming exercise and/or a timed coding exercise.

Substitutions

• A high school diploma or GED with an additional seven (7) years of directly related experience substitutes for the bachelor’s degree requirement.
• An associate’s degree from an accredited institution and an additional three (3) years of directly related experience substitutes for the bachelor’s degree requirement.
• A master’s degree in a related subject substitutes for two (2) years of general experience.
• A nationally recognized certification, or statewide/professional certification in a related field substitutes for one (1) year of experience.

• Strong understanding of distributed systems or high-reliability systems.
• Experience with Elixir.
• Experience with AWS.
• Experience with Application Programming Interfaces (API) / microservices / Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).
• Experience developing code as part of an open-source project.
• Experience in public sector, transportation agency, and/or civic technology team.
• Familiarity with MBTA transit data standards (GTFS, GTFS-RT, TODS, TIDES).