Tech Lead/Manager, Software Engineering

Cengage; Kentucky; Hybrid; USD 101,900 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive Total Rewards package

Health and retirement benefits

Job summary

Cengage is seeking a technology leader to manage a high-performing team dedicated to creating tools for Cengage Learning Platforms. The role involves fostering innovation through an AI-first approach and collaborating across teams to ensure effective product delivery.

Ideal candidates will possess a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and 3+ years of experience in technology leadership, with proven skills in cloud technologies and software engineering.

Compensation ranges from $101,900 to $150,000 USD annually with comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• Proficient in integrating AI technologies with hands-on experience.
• Experience in modernizing legacy architectures and cloud strategies.
• Ability to deliver scalable and secure systems for global users.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team to create tools for Cengage Learning Platforms.
• Define an AI-first roadmap for content quality.
• Collaborate with teams as a technical lead.

Skills

Team leadership

AI concepts

Cloud technologies

Software engineering

Agile delivery

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

3+ years of technology leadership experience

Tools

AWS

Azure

Jira

Azure DevOps

Job description

What you’ll do here

• Lead a team dedicated to creating tools to deliver world‑class content for our Cengage Learning Platforms (CLP).
• Define and implement an innovative, AI‑first roadmap ensuring content quality and accessibility remain a primary focus.
• Collaborate with product and design teams under the Product Operating Model (POM) as technical lead.
• Improve customer outcomes through frequent stakeholder engagements and data‑driven insights.
• Coach and grow a high‑performing engineering team focused on quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Reimagine and optimize content‑creation workflows using modern platforms, automation, and generative AI.
• Drive POM Discovery activities, including continuous customer engagement to derive solutions that meet end‑user, company, and technology goals.
• Track quality and efficiency improvements through well‑instrumented SDLC tools and report progress to executive teams.
• Balance technical debt and maintenance activities alongside new feature development within each sprint.
• Work with partners and customers to establish and handle product backlogs, product estimates, and budgets.
• Stay current on emerging technologies and industry trends to inject continuous innovation into product roadmaps.

Skills You Will Need Here

• Education & Experience
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and recent, relevant work experience.
  • 3+ years of technology leadership experience, including developing technology strategies, fostering innovation, and leading globally distributed teams.
• Generative AI & Emerging Technologies
  • Working knowledge of AI concepts, including machine learning, LLMs, multimodal models, prompt engineering, AI agents, RAG, and vector databases.
  • Hands‑on experience integrating or experimenting with commercial and open‑source GenAI technologies and toolkits such as coding assistants, OpenAI, Hugging Face, and LangChain.
• Architecture & Cloud Platforms
  • Experience modernizing legacy or monolithic architectures, migrating systems to modular, cloud‑native platforms, and implementing hybrid cloud strategies.
  • Ability to design and develop APIs that integrate legacy systems with modern solutions.
  • Comfortable designing and deploying solutions on AWS, GCP, or Azure, including containers, serverless, and cloud storage/compute services.
• Software Engineering & Product Delivery
  • Proven ability to build secure, resilient, scalable, high‑availability enterprise systems for global user bases.
  • Strong experience with agile delivery (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and tooling such as Jira or Azure DevOps.
  • Demonstrated success organizing teams and delivery around a Product Operating Model.
• Collaboration & Communication
  • Strong cross‑functional collaboration skills in distributed, remote‑first environments.
  • Ability to clearly communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non‑technical audiences, including executives.

Compensation

10% Annual: Individual Target $101,900.00 – $150,000.00 USD

Bonus target is not guaranteed and is dependent on individual performance and overall company results among other factors.

Benefits

Comprehensive Total Rewards package designed to support and empower employees, including health, retirement, and other benefits.

Equity & Diversity

Cengage Group is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and highly qualified individuals. Applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial, or local laws. We provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities during the application process.