Remote-First Principal Software Engineer (AI & Architecture)

ExploreK12; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first with home office stipend

Job summary

ExploreK12 is an educational technology company serving over 17 million students and educators worldwide. We are seeking a senior technical leader to shape and guide large-scale software platforms with a focus on reliability and modernization.

You will own critical architectural decisions, mentor engineers, and deliver production-grade code leveraging AI-assisted development. Ideal candidates have 10+ years of experience, hands-on work with PHP, MySQL, Java, and MS SQL Server, and a track record

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience in senior technical leadership.
• Hands-on experience with PHP, MySQL, Java and MS SQL Server at Principal or Staff level.
• Strong application architecture skills across APIs, data models, integrations, and failure modes.
• Experience evolving mature, long-lived software systems incrementally.
• Strong technical judgment balancing maintainability, risk, cost, and team capacity.
• Ability to turn ambiguous situations into clear problems and executable paths.
• Practical fluency with AI-assisted software development.

Responsibilities

• Get deeply into applications, codebases, data flows, integrations, and operational behavior.
• Turn ambiguous engineering problems into clear options, tradeoffs, and recommended approaches.
• Contribute meaningful production code and own high-impact technical work.
• Partner with architects to craft practical approaches for evolving the product landscape.
• Recommend modernization investments based on evidence, value, risk, and reversibility.
• Be a high-leverage technical partner on cross-product architectural decisions.
• Coach senior engineers and technical leads through design, pairing, and code review.
• Apply modern AI-assisted development practically and identify valuable AI opportunities.

Skills

Senior leadership

PHP

MySQL

Java

MS SQL Server

APIs & data models

AI-assisted development

Architectural judgment

Job description

ExploreK12 is an educational technology company serving over 17 million students and educators worldwide. We are seeking a senior technical leader to shape and guide large-scale software platforms with a focus on reliability and modernization.

You will own critical architectural decisions, mentor engineers, and deliver production-grade code leveraging AI-assisted development. Ideal candidates have 10+ years of experience, hands-on work with PHP, MySQL, Java, and MS SQL Server, and a track record