Principal Software Engineer

Cengage; Kentucky; Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Incentive bonus program

Reasonable accommodations for disabilities

Job summary

Cengage in Kentucky seeks a technology leader to manage critical systems and lead remote software engineering organizations. The ideal candidate will have significant experience in technology leadership, particularly in generative AI and enterprise architecture.

The position emphasizes collaboration, agile methodologies, and continuous improvement, driving enhancements in user engagement and product delivery.

Benefits include competitive compensation and the potential for incentive bonuses based on performance.

Qualifications

• 5 years of technology leadership experience in distributed teams.
• Solid understanding of generative AI concepts and frameworks.
• Experience modernizing legacy architectures and migrating systems to cloud.

Responsibilities

• Lead technology teams in Internal Operations business unit.
• Collaborate with product partners and drive improvements.
• Stay up to date with emerging technologies and industry trends.

Skills

Leadership in technology

Agile methodologies

Technical communication

Generative AI concepts

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field

Tools

AWS

Azure

Terraform

Jira

Job description

Responsibilities

Lead all aspects of critical systems for delivering innovative education technology platforms. Specifically, you will lead technology teams in our Internal Operations business unit which includes our Content Systems, content workflows and content AI platforms.

As a successful technology leader, you will build and lead remote software engineering organizations using agile principles to architect and deliver high-availability enterprise software. You will partner closely with product and design teams and lead through data-driven insights.

Obsess over customer outcomes in every decision and drive measurable improvements in user engagement. Balance your time between technical composition and product building for software development teams that work on content workflow automation, application development, and platform support.

Work jointly with other technology and product leads to provide direction and leadership to the agile teams. Design, architect, and implement new features and functionality with the expectation to own and drive development using an iterative methodology and deliver products that scale to support millions of customers.

Collaborate with product partners, customers and other technologists to understand customers’ content, learning and technological needs; provide guidance on technology solution options. Communicate sophisticated technical information clearly across product and technology teams, learning designers, interface designers and domain authorities.

Supervise product performance, analyze performance data, and gather user feedback to continuously iterate and improve the product to provide a consistently reliable and high-performing experience with our platforms, available 24/7. Conduct post-release evaluations, retrospectives, and A/B testing to advise future product enhancements and strategic decision-making.

Adopt agile methodologies and the principles of a customer-centric product model to drive iterative development, continuous improvement, and rapid time-to-market. Work closely with multi-functional teams to define user stories, prioritize backlog items, and ensure timely and high-quality product releases.

Stay up to date with emerging technologies and industry trends and integrate relevant advancements into our product roadmaps. Cultivate a high-performance, transparent culture of continuous improvement focused on accountability and results.

Qualifications

• Education & Experience
  • Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field, or an equivalent combination of education and recent, relevant work experience.
  • 5 years of technology leadership experience, including developing technology strategies, fostering innovation, and influencing distributed teams across multiple time zones.
• Generative AI & Emerging Technologies
  • Solid understanding of generative AI concepts and frameworks, such as LLMs, multimodal models, prompt engineering, AI agent orchestration, retrieval augmented generation, and vector databases.
  • Hands‑on experience integrating or experimenting with commercial and open-source GenAI technologies and toolkits (e.g., OpenAI, Hugging Face, LangChain).
  • Familiarity with agentic workflows and AI‑enabled automation for applications such as content management, search, personalization, or workflow optimization.
  • Knowledge of AI safety, responsible AI practices, and content moderation systems.
  • Motivation to stay up-to-date with advancements in GenAI, MLOps, and digital transformation.
• Enterprise Architecture, Software Engineering & Product Delivery
  • Experience modernizing legacy or monolithic architectures, migrating systems to modular, cloud-native platforms, and implementing hybrid cloud strategies.
  • Track record of architecting and deploying solutions on public cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including storage (S3), compute (EC2, Lambda), containerization (Kubernetes, Docker), and serverless computing and event-driven systems.
  • Understanding of Infrastructure as Code tools (e.g., Terraform, AWS CDK) for automated, scalable deployments and GitOps / AIOps practices.
  • Experience implementing the AWS Well-Architected Framework across all six pillars.
  • Skilled in agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and using tools like Jira or Azure DevOps to support efficient, priority-aligned delivery.
• Content Operations & Domain Expertise
  • Understanding of content management systems, digital asset management, and content delivery networks.
  • Experience with content workflow automation, metadata management, and content versioning systems.
  • Knowledge of content personalization, search systems, and recommendation engines.
  • Familiarity with content creation tools, authoring systems, and publishing platforms.
  • Understanding of educational technology domains and learning content requirements.
• Collaboration & Communication
  • Strong interpersonal and collaboration skills—capable of partnering effectively with multi-functional teams, including product, build, and engineering, in distributed and remote-first environments.
  • Experienced in breaking down complicated technical concepts for diverse technical and non-technical audiences, including executives and partners.
  • Proactive approach to learning new technologies, embracing experimentation, and incorporating emerging practices into platforms and teams.
  • Commitment to continuous improvement for both product and engineering culture.

EEO Statement

Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. Our job applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial or local laws. Cengage is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities during the job application process.

Benefits & Compensation

Individual base pay will vary based on work schedule, qualifications, experience, internal equity, and geographic location. The full base pay range has been provided for this position. In addition, you may be eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program. The bonus target amount is not guaranteed and is dependent on individual performance and overall company results.