Senior Backend Architect: Cloud-Native & Distributed

Pearson; Lincoln (NE); On-site; USD 125,000 - 175,000; Full time

Job summary

Pearson is seeking an experienced Senior Software Engineer to own and evolve scalable backend systems in a cloud-native, AWS-driven environment. You will lead design, implementation, and production support across distributed teams while balancing modernization with reliability.

You will mentor colleagues, drive architectural decisions, and contribute to technical runbooks, tests, and observability efforts to ensure secure, maintainable systems aligned with Pearson’s platform strategy.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience in CS/SE/IT, Master’s is a plus.
• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant backend design/operation responsibilities.
• Deep knowledge of backend concepts: distributed systems, concurrency, scalability, and fault tolerance.
• Strong programming with Java/Kotlin/Scala/C#/Go/TypeScript.
• Experience designing microservices, REST APIs, and event-driven architectures.
• Experience with AWS and cloud-native engineering across multiple AWS services.
• Experience with automated testing, CI/CD, and observability practices.
• Proven ability to document architecture and guidance.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and production support of complex software systems.
• Build scalable backend services and distributed, event-driven architectures on AWS.
• Own major initiatives from discovery through production rollout and sustainment.
• Balance new capabilities with modernization, reliability, and technical debt reduction.
• Mentor engineers and drive engineering standards, reviews, and best practices.
• Produce clear technical documentation and runbooks to support operations.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

API design

AWS cloud

Observability

Technical leadership

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in CS/SE/IT

Tools

AWS Lambda

ECS/EKS

API Gateway

SQS/SNS

EventBridge

MSK

DynamoDB

RDS/Aurora

Neptune

CloudWatch

IaC

Job description

Pearson is seeking an experienced Senior Software Engineer to own and evolve scalable backend systems in a cloud-native, AWS-driven environment. You will lead design, implementation, and production support across distributed teams while balancing modernization with reliability.

You will mentor colleagues, drive architectural decisions, and contribute to technical runbooks, tests, and observability efforts to ensure secure, maintainable systems aligned with Pearson’s platform strategy.