Senior Software Engineer

About us

UPchieve is an edtech nonprofit that provides free, 24/7 online tutoring and college counseling to low-income 6th-12th grade students in the U.S. Using our app, students can request and get paired with a live, volunteer tutor in under 5 minutes. Our mission is to democratize access to academic support so that all students have an equal opportunity to finish high school, attend college, and achieve upward mobility. So far, we've matched 200,000+ requests from 25,000+ students across all 50 states. Our work has also been recognized by Forbes and TIME, and our funders include both Y Combinator and the Gates Foundation. Watch this video to see our impact on students.

Who we're looking for

We're a small team taking on the monumental challenge of democratizing access to academic support. That means we need team members who are excited by autonomy and willing to work on projects outside the scope of their job description if needed. We also look for candidates who have a personal connection to our cause or a demonstrable interest in education or serving low-income populations.

Our team

• We're a remote-first team located across the U.S.
• We highly value diversity of experiences & perspectives. The majority of the team are people of color, and many of us have experience growing up low-income or navigating nontraditional educational pathways
• We believe working full-time means 40 hrs/wk. Non-work stuff is important too!
• We get together in person 1x/year at a staff retreat, designed to foster connections and give our team a break from their day-to-day work

Our benefits

• 3 weeks paid vacation AND 20+ paid holidays (including Dec 24-Jan 1)
• Flexible work schedule (choose your own hours)
• $1000 annual professional development budget
• $1000 annual remote work budget
• Up to 100% covered health insurance for employees
• 401ks with 6% matching
• Half-day Summer Fridays

About the job

This is a remote position.

Join our product and engineering team to help us provide free tutoring to 8 million low-income high school students in the U.S.

Software engineers at UPchieve are full-stack product engineers. As a Senior+ Product Engineer at UPchieve, you'll be instrumental in whether we accomplish our vision of scaling free, 24/7 online tutoring and college counseling or not. Expect to spend your 40 hours/week on some combination of: driving software development projects, supporting and mentoring the other 2 devs, thinking up and testing ideas with the design and product leads, and working with the broader UPchieve team on product and technical strategy that will get us to the finish line of democratizing access to academic support.

Given our early stage, you'll influence everything from technical strategy to team culture across the organization. Come put your name on every corner of the world's best tutoring platform for low-income students!

This might be the right job for you if…

• You care deeply about our mission, and you'd chase it somewhere else if you didn't do it here

• You're excited by the challenge of building a product on par with Khan Academy and Duolingo

• You're scrappy. If you don't know how to do something, you'll find out or find help.

• You are a team player who sees genuine value in helping other engineers improve their skills

• You're knowledgeable and open-minded. You relish debating trade-offs on everything from value, to user experience, to technical architecture.

• You have high quality standards and take pride in shipping reliable code that's easy to change

What you'll do

• Think up, design, build, and ship full-stack features and improvements that solve our users' problems

• Own and drive projects from the first idea to the last student's lightbulb moment

• Help others, especially engineers, through pair programming, code reviews, mentorship, and depending on seniority formal management of a direct report

• Set standards for high levels of quality, performance, scalability, and reliability of our platform

• Think critically about our users, product, and business, asking questions and suggesting changes

• Improve our internal workflow to help everyone ship better code faster

Thank you for choosing to make a huge difference in the lives of millions of students!

Preferred Experience

Here are some experiences we think would make a 🌟 candidate, but they aren't the only things that could do that. You don't need to check all the boxes to apply.

• Has 5+ years of full-stack app development and proficiency with JavaScript/TypeScript

• Has worked with a wide range of technologies and touched every part of software development (including testing, architecture, and deployment)

• Has worked on multiple engineering teams, including at startups, and seen different things work for different teams

• Has prior experience with some or all of our tech stack: TypeScript, Vue.js, Node.js, React Native, WebSockets, Redis, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Azure

• Has deep experience building and integrating mobile or AI products

• Has prior experience with IPaaS and devops

• Has prior experience in data science or data analytics

• Is interested in open source communities

• Has a personal connection to our mission through experience, family, or by other proximity (e.g., grew up low-income, taught in a Title I school, etc.)

Salary ranges

While our ideal candidate is pursuing a senior level role or above, we are considering candidates at varying experience or skill levels for this role. It will ultimately be about finding the right person for the team and then bring them in at the appropriate level.

U.S. work authorization

Right now, our small mighty team is focusing on candidates who are already authorized to work in the U.S. We're not set up to sponsor visas or handle immigration procedures at the moment. It's a tough call, and we're aiming to expand our capabilities in the future. If you're ready to work in the U.S., we'd love to connect with you!

Equal opportunity employer

Given our mission, it's probably no surprise we're big believers in equal opportunities for everyone. We're committed to creating a workplace that's as diverse as the students we serve. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants, regardless of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, we comply with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all team members.