Senior Backend Engineer - Cloud Native, AWS & Distributed

Pearson; Harrisburg (Dauphin County); On-site; USD 125,000 - 175,000; Full time

Job summary

Pearson is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to lead end-to-end design, build, and operation of scalable backend systems in a cloud-native AWS environment. You’ll own major initiatives, drive architectural decisions, and partner with product and platform teams to deliver reliable, high-quality software.

The role emphasizes production readiness, performance optimization, and modernization, with a focus on distributed systems, event-driven workflows, and secure APIs.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with backend systems design/operation.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems, concurrency, scalability, fault tolerance, and performance.
• Experience leading complex, cross-functional software initiatives as a technical lead or senior engineer.
• Strong programming experience in at least one modern, strongly typed language (Java/Kotlin/Scala/C#/Go/Rust/TypeScript).

Responsibilities

• Own architecture, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and production support of complex software systems.
• Build scalable, reliable, secure backend services and event-driven streaming solutions on AWS.
• Lead major engineering initiatives from discovery through production rollout and ongoing support.
• Balance new features with modernization, debt reduction, and reliability improvements.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance across onshore and offshore teams.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Event-driven architectures

Cloud-native AWS

RESTful APIs

Java/Kotlin/Scala/Go/TypeScript

Architectural leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree or higher

Master’s degree a plus

Tools

AWS Lambda

ECS/EKS

API Gateway

SQS/SNS

DynamoDB

RDS/Aurora

CloudWatch

Terraform

Job description

Pearson is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to lead end-to-end design, build, and operation of scalable backend systems in a cloud-native AWS environment. You’ll own major initiatives, drive architectural decisions, and partner with product and platform teams to deliver reliable, high-quality software.

The role emphasizes production readiness, performance optimization, and modernization, with a focus on distributed systems, event-driven workflows, and secure APIs.