Lead Backend Engineer

About the role

BigFuture is committed to empowering all students to take the right first step after high school, reaching over 7 million students each year as the leading free resource for college, scholarship, and career exploration. The BigFuture Student team builds and maintains the full breadth of BigFuture student products like BigFuture School a mobile app & bigfuture.org including but not limited to College Search, Scholarship Search, Career Search , dashboards, checklists, and community features so that students can confidently discover, define, and pursue their unique paths. We work in an agile, collaborative environment that values creativity, curiosity, and problem-solving, delivering clean and sustainable solutions that scale to meet the needs of millions while reducing technical debt. Engineers on our team not only code, but also mentor, document, and partner with product and design to shape solutions and influence the direction of our work. We thrive on learning from each other, raising risks early, and finding simplicity in complexity, all while celebrating shared successes and growth. Together, we are mission-driven technologists who take pride in building products that positively transform the educational and career trajectories of students nationwide. This is a chance to have a direct hand in building the future o f BigFuture , the most widely used college and career planning platform for students. As a Lead Engineer on this team , you are a leader, collaborator, and innovator. You Own the technical direction: Define, document, and communicate the architecture and design pattern s for the system or product area. You have a strong interest in understanding our stakeholders and leveraging new technologies to support them. You'll work closely with product owners, architects, and designers to translate ideas into solutions, and with fellow engineers to raise the bar on code quality, documentation, and sustainable practices including operational readiness and monitoring . From day one, you'll be encouraged to coach teammates, influence technical decisions, and help simplify complex problems so that students and educators experience fast, reliable, and meaningful tools. Beyond building products, this role offers you the opportunity to elevate engineering practices, explore emerging technologies like AI, and grow into a trusted technical leader whose work impacts millions of students each year . You are not shy about taking on new work you may not have done before while owning all phases of prototyping including requirements definition and analysis, application design, coding, reviewing, testing, deploying, and support. You are eager to lead by example as well as more formally through peer collaboration, coaching and mentoring. In this role, you will: Design and Development (60%) Design and deliver high-quality software that is scalable, secure, and reusable- leveraging modern technologies, proven design patterns, and cloud-native practices to power BigFuture's core tools. Collaborate with product owners, architects, and stakeholders to uphold the highest engineering standards and translate big ideas into impactful, student-facing solutions. Break down new product capabilities into actionable, verifiable technical changes that move quickly from concept to reality. Design and implement solutions to allow rapid testing of innovative concepts using the latest technologies, typically React web apps Create sharable documentation, both technical and non-technical Exercise discretion in prototyping: investing time to make sure the most important things work well, and working with the team to mock or minimize less important features Maintain clean code and strong engineering standards such that when prototypes are greenlit for further development, the project is easy to build upon Continuously develop the skills required to work with this rapidly developing technology Team Operations & Success ( 3 0%) Participate in, or lead Agile SCRUM ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Grooming, Daily SCRUM, Demo) by contributing to team deliverables and driving alignment, focus, and momentum across sprints. Elevate team performance by giving and receiving thoughtful code reviews, mentoring peers, and helping solve complex technical challenges. Assist in resolving production issues with urgency and precision, ensuring a smooth and reliable user experience. Model discipline in adhering to development standards, security practices, and CI/CD principles while helping the team move fast without compromising quality. Continuously grow your skills and embrace a poly-skilled environment where every