Software Engineer, Backend

Seesaw Learning; United States; On-site; USD 173,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical & Dental

Vision Coverage

401(k) Match

Flexible PTO

Home Office Stipend

Professional Development

Parental Leave

Volunteer Days

Job summary

Seesaw Learning seeks a Senior Engineer for the Core Systems team to drive backend development at scale using Python (Tornado) and a cloud-first infrastructure. You will own API design, data storage interactions, and the platform's reliability across billions of requests per month.

You’ll collaborate with product managers and senior engineers to shape infrastructure as code and cost-efficient cloud strategies while maintaining strong security and observability practices.

Qualifications

• 7+ years experience with backend development; durable systems-thinking.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems: eventual consistency, fan-in/out, backpressure.
• Proficiency with AWS core services (EC2, Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, ECS/EKS).
• CI/CD pipelines experience, preferably Github Actions.
• Self-starter capable of independent execution and owning vision.
• Proven experience owning and operating infrastructure at high scale.

Responsibilities

• Modify, diagnose, and change Python HTTP backend (Tornado) and data stores (Dynamo, Elasticsearch, Redis).
• Contribute to infrastructure-as-code repo for AWS provisioning.
• Reason about distributed systems to drive technical decisions.
• Own technical work from inception to production monitoring and alerting.
• Export best practices on code, tooling, and observability.
• Ensure security and reliability of Seesaw's platform; address vulnerabilities and bottlenecks.
• Optimize cloud infrastructure for cost-effectiveness.
• Help develop a strong technical roadmap and engineering culture.
• Partner with senior team members, PMs, and stakeholders to align infra with business goals.

Skills

Backend development

Distributed systems

AWS core services

CI/CD pipelines

Self‑starter

Production infra ownership

Tools

Python

Job description

About Us

Trusted and loved by 25 million educators, students, and families worldwide, Seesaw is the world’s leading elementary learning experience company, offering an award-winning platform and a suite of digital curriculum products for teachers to deliver joyful, accessible instruction. Through interactive lessons, digital portfolios, and two-way communication features, Seesaw keeps everyone in the learning loop by providing continuous visibility into the student's learning experience to support and celebrate their learning.

About Us

Trusted and loved by 25 million educators, students, and families worldwide, Seesaw is the world’s leading elementary learning experience company, offering an award-winning platform and a suite of digital curriculum products for teachers to deliver joyful, accessible instruction. Through interactive lessons, digital portfolios, and two-way communication features, Seesaw keeps everyone in the learning loop by providing continuous visibility into the student's learning experience to support and celebrate their learning.

Our Mission

Seesaw’s mission is to provide every elementary student with joyful and connected learning experiences that lay the foundation for success in life.

Your Team

Seesaw provides a unique opportunity to impact the lives and learning of millions of students, educators, and parents in the US and across the world. The Core Systems team sits at the heart of the technology that powers the millions of interactions with our product every day, ensuring that the platform is reliable, available, performs well, and contributes meaningfully to learning in the classroom. The team is small and covers a broad surface area, so for high-performing and independent developers there is a vast potential for ownership and upward mobility by demonstrating high impact with their efforts. We value impact over effort, and work hard to preserve real work-life balance through our team culture and Seesaw’s unique benefits.

Your Role

A Senior Engineer on the Core Systems team is expected to have a deep understanding of backend development and infrastructure at scale. This means expertise with the implementation of HTTP APIs, interaction of API code with data storage layers, infrastructure provisioning, and a thorough grasp on how software goes from being built by dozens of developers, tested, shipped, and run at scale with rock-solid reliability.

Your Responsibilities

• Modify, diagnose, and change code in our Python HTTP backend, which runs on Tornado and backed by data stored in Dynamo, Elasticsearch, and Redis.
• Contribute to our infrastructure-as-code repo, which is responsible for provisioning resources in AWS.
• Reason about distributed systems to drive good technical decision-making.
• Own technical work from the early stages of inception, to implementation, to production monitoring and alerting.
• Export best practices around code authoring, tool usage, and observability to other engineering teams at Seesaw.
• Ensure the security and reliability of Seesaw's platform, proactively identifying and addressing potential vulnerabilities and performance bottlenecks.
• Optimize cloud infrastructure for cost-effectiveness, leveraging best practices in resource management.
• Help develop a strong technical roadmap and engineering culture through design proposals, industry engagement, and more.
• Partner with senior team members, product managers, and other key stakeholders to drive strategic initiatives and align infrastructure development with business objectives.

Your Requirements

• 7+ years experience with backend development - durable systems-level thinking will always trump specific language experience.
• Thorough understanding of the mechanics of distributed systems - things like eventual consistency, fan‑in fan‑out patterns, backpressure, etc.
• Familiarity with AWS core services (EC2, Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, ECS/EKS) or similar cloud experience
• Proficient with CI/CD pipelines, preferably Github Actions
• Self‑starter with an ability to execute independently, knowing when to stop and seek more information and when to forge ahead and boldly own your vision.
• Proven experience owning and operating the infrastructure that runs software at a high scale (think billions of incoming requests per month)

Compensation & Benefits

Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our size and industry. Salary is just one part of our total compensation package that includes perks & benefits, and development opportunities at Seesaw. Individual pay decisions are based on several factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, geography, and balancing internal equity relative to other Seesawers. It is our expectation that the majority of candidates who are offered roles at Seesaw will land well within our salary ranges based on these factors.

The annual hiring base salary for this position is: $172,500 - $200,000

This is an Exempt position.

Benefits include: Medical/Dental + Orthodontics/Vision Coverage, 401(k) Match, Flexible Paid Time Off, Mindfulness First Fridays, Monthly Technology Stipend, Home Office Setup Stipend, Professional Development Stipend, Paid Parental Leave, Charitable Donation Matching, Volunteer Days.

Seesaw cares about building a diverse and inclusive team to better advocate for the needs of our incredibly diverse K-12 users.

We prioritize work-life balance and actually walk the walk — we care a lot about our work, but care more about our employee's well-being. We encourage everyone to work at a sustainable pace and have a flexible vacation policy that people actually use.

Seesaw provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, religious creed, color, sex, sex stereotype, gender, gender identity/gender expression/transgender, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information/characteristics, marital status/registered domestic partner status, age, sexual orientation, or military or veteran status. In addition to federal law requirements, Seesaw complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

Seesaw is committed to protecting your personal data. Learn more about the personal information we collect, how we use it, and how to exercise your rights here: U.S. Privacy Notice.

Our company participates in E-Verify.