Senior Director of Engineering

Weld North Education (now Imagine Learning); United States; On-site; USD 183,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision plans

401k with company match

Paid holidays and winter shutdown

Paid time off

Maternity and fertility benefits

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Imagine Learning is seeking a Senior Director of Engineering to lead a large, distributed software organization and deliver enterprise-grade education technology. You will shape architecture, guide product integration, and mentor a wide team of engineers to scale performance and reliability across cloud platforms.

The role requires strategic leadership, strong communication, and a track record of building world-class engineering teams.

Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in computer science or a related field.
• 14+ years managing and mentoring software engineering teams.
• 20+ years experience in design, development, and release of software.
• Experience leading a team of 25+ engineers.
• Experience managing a combined budget of $5,000,000+ (FTE + contractors).
• Enterprise-grade platform experience and large-scale integrations.
• 10+ years with Microsoft stack, OOP and database technologies.
• Design and engineering for enterprise API and web services.
• Strong architecture and engineering focus on performance, security and quality.
• Cloud experience, AWS preferred.
• Ability to adopt new technologies to solve problems at scale.
• Ability to manage multiple initiatives with stakeholders.
• Leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• CMS/LMS exposure desirable.

Responsibilities

• Plan and deliver with Engineering Managers and Tech Leads, ensuring clear specs and tools for delivery.
• Establish realistic timelines while keeping teams focused on deadlines.
• Partner with product leaders on ideation and execution of new products and integrations.
• Build and grow a high-performing team of engineers.
• Participate in architecture and solution design; mentor engineers and optimize tools and processes.
• Own engineering capabilities and ensure system performance at scale.
• Perform other duties as required.

Skills

Engineering leadership

People management

Cloud architecture (AWS)

API and web services design

Agile / DevOps

Hiring & budgeting

Education

Master’s Degree in computer science or related field

Tools

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Great Purpose. Great People. Great Opportunities.

At Imagine Learning, we Empower Potential - in students, educators, and each other. As the leading provider of digital-first K–12 curriculum solutions, we’re committed to igniting learning breakthroughs that spark curiosity, creativity, and confidence. Every day, our team designs innovative tools that help educators personalize instruction and engage students in meaningful ways. We’re shaping the future of learning through our Curriculum-Informed AI™ approach - technology that understands instructional context, respects educator judgment, and transforms how teachers personalize learning at scale to unlock each student’s potential. Together, we’re reimagining what’s possible and transforming education.

That same spirit of innovation and purpose drives our team culture. At Imagine Learning, you’ll find opportunities for meaningful work, continuous growth, and connection with passionate colleagues who care deeply about making a difference. We celebrate collaboration, embrace change, and believe in lifelong learning - for our students and ourselves.

As a remote-friendly company, Imagine Learning offers flexible work arrangements across the U.S. and internationally. Most of our U.S.-based employees work from home or on a hybrid schedule at one of our office locations in Tempe, AZ (HQ), Austin, TX, Petaluma, CA, Rock Rapids, IA, or Bloomington, MN.

Imagine Your Impact.

The Senior Director of Engineering is a key part of our Technology Leadership Team, interfacing with multiple levels of the organization and helping drive results and outcomes. This position manages and coordinates resources, processes & solutions to deliver releases of company products with quality. Also helps define the vision, definition, and strategy for the engineering team to deliver on company goals.

Position Information

Position Information: This is a regular, full-time position, reporting to the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.

Compensation

Compensation: Base pay is anticipated to be between $183,249.00 and $230,000.00 per year. Eligible employees may also receive incentive/commission/annual bonus pay based on individual and/or company performance. Compensation may vary based on factors such as, but not limited to, individual skills, experience, training, education/certifications, geographic location, internal equity, and local market conditions.

Location

Location: In this US-based position your location will be remote.

Benefits

• Multiple health, dental, and vision plans, including medical plans with zero employee premiums
• 401k plan with a company match
• 16 paid holidays, which include 2 floating holidays and a winter shutdown from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day
• Paid Time Off
• Comprehensive maternity and fertility/family building benefits
• Paid bonding leave when a new child joins your family
• Access to on-demand mental health resources
• Life and short and long-term disability insurance
• Pre-tax savings plans
• Paid volunteer time off2
• A wide variety of professional development programs, including tuition reimbursement
• Work from home opportunities that foster work/life balance

Envision Your Experience.

In this role you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Work together with Engineering Managers and Technical Leads to plan and execute delivery, ensuring teams have appropriate product and design specifications, direction, and tools to deliver effectively.
• Establish realistic estimates for timelines while ensuring teams remain focused and on target to meet deadlines.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with our product leaders and stakeholders; partner with them on the ideation and execution of new products and integrations.
• Build and grow a team of expert engineers to deliver best-in-class products.
• Participate in architecture and solution design, mentor engineers, explore frameworks, toolsets, and processes to improve the team’s productivity, accountable for quality software delivery.
• Fully accountable for the engineering capabilities, architectural decisions, and ensuring our systems perform at scale.
• Other duties as required.

Share Your Expertise.

Experience, education, and qualifications essential for success in this role, include:

• Master’s Degree in computer science or a related field or an acceptable combination of education and experience.
• At least 14 years managing, mentoring, and building highly performing software engineering teams focused on quality delivery.
• At least 20 years experience in design, development, and/or release cycle delivering software to market.
• Experience leading a team of at least 25 people.
• Experience managing an FTE and contractor combined budget of $5,000,000 or more.
• Work experience developing enterprise grade platforms and interfacing with large, complex applications.
• At least 10 years of strong architecture and engineering experience with the Microsoft stack, Object Oriented Programming and Database Technologies.
• Design and engineering skills in building and maintaining enterprise API and Web Services, supporting internal and external integrations.
• A solid understanding of engineering for Performance, Security and Quality.
• Strong experience with creating and deploying applications in Cloud environments. Strong AWS experience preferred.
• Ability to assess and bring in new technology as needed to solve business problems at scale, preferably with solid experience with modern architectures and open source.
• Ability to own and manage multiple concurrent initiatives, including presenting and negotiating with stakeholders on the inter dependencies and possibilities of what can be realistically delivered.
• Experience building services or applications where performance is an important consideration. Performance tuning, reliability, redundancy, and fault-tolerant architectures is necessary.
• Experience in containerization, modern build practices and a dev-ops mindset preferred.
• Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to influence and align.
• Expert at spotting talent and passionate about growing a team of world class engineers.
• Knowledge and understanding of the software development cycle in an Agile environment.
• Content Management and Learning Management System exposure highly desirable.
• Respectful and outstanding leadership skills that provide vision and motivation to staff focused on achieving business goals.
• Highly motivated with excellent verbal and written communication, presentation, and problem-solving skills.
• Self-starter with strong organizational, people and time management skills, self-directed and able to manage multiple priorities with demanding time frames.
• Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues and staff to create a high-quality results-driven, team-oriented environment.
• Willingness and ability to work flexible hours.

At Imagine Learning, we believe our work is strongest when people feel respected, supported, and encouraged to contribute their unique perspectives. We strive to create a welcoming workplace where employees can learn from one another, grow together, and build educational experiences that reflect the world of our learners.

Imagine Learning is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing equal employment and advancement opportunities to qualified individuals. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, transgender status (including whether or not you are transitioning or have transitioned), sexual orientation, marital status, religion (including religion dress and grooming practices), age 40 and over, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information (including results of genetic testing and characteristics), veteran and/or military status, or service in the military, and any other basis or status protected under applicable federal, state, or local laws.