If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.
Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.
At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
Grade: Technical 410Pay Range: $140,200.00 - $217,200.00
We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer who thrives in ambiguous problem spaces and excels at technical research, discovery, and analysis. This role requires strong end‑to‑end engineering skills across frontend and backend systems, along with hands‑on experience designing and delivering AI‑powered applications using Large Language Models (LLMs) deployed on AWS and Kubernetes
In this role, you will lead technical discovery efforts, explore emerging approaches, and translate loosely defined problems into scalable, production‑ready solutions. You will work closely with product, design, and engineering partners to shape user‑facing experiences and cloud‑native, containerized platform capabilities.
This is a hands‑on senior individual contributor role with strong ownership of architecture, delivery, and mentoring.
What You’ll Do
Technical Discovery & Research
Lead research and discovery for complex, ambiguous problem spaces through architectural spikes, prototypes, and proof‑of‑concepts
Evaluate new technologies, AWS services, Kubernetes patterns, and AI capabilities
Perform build‑vs‑buy and managed‑service vs. self‑managed tradeoff analyses
Translate findings into clear architectural direction and implementation plans
AI & Large Language Models
Design, implement, and evaluate AI‑powered features using Large Language Models
Apply prompt engineering, retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), and agent‑based workflows
Design AI systems that account for latency, cost, reliability, observability, and safety
Deploy AI services in containerized environments and integrate them with cloud‑native infrastructure
Stay current with applied AILLM advancements and production best practices
Full‑Stack Engineering
Own features end‑to‑end, from frontend experiences to backend services and data layers
Build modern, responsive user interfaces using Angular, or similar frameworks
Design and implement scalable backend services and APIs
Ensure solutions meet high standards for performance, reliability, security, and maintainability
AWS, Kubernetes & Cloud‑Native Architecture
Design, deploy, and operate cloud‑native systems on AWS using Kubernetes
Build and operate containerized workloads using Docker and Kubernetes (EKS or equivalent)
Design Kubernetes deployments, services, ingress, autoscaling, and resource management strategies
Implement secure, highly available architectures using AWS and Kubernetes best practices
Apply Infrastructure as Code using tools such as Terraform and Helm
Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize distributed systems using cloud and Kubernetes observability tools
DevOps & Reliability
Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines that build, test, and deploy containerized applications
Support zero‑downtime deployments and safe rollout strategies (e.g., blue/green, canary)
Participate in on‑call rotations and incident response for production systems
Drive improvements in reliability, scalability, and developer experience
Leadership & Collaboration
Provide technical leadership on projects and guide architectural decisions
Mentor engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and hands‑on collaboration
Partner with product managers and designers to align technical solutions with user needs
Communicate clearly about technical tradeoffs, risks, and system behavior
What We’re Looking For
Required Qualifications
6+ years of professional software engineering experience
Bachelor's Degree - equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements
Strong proficiency in a modern backend language (e.g., Java, Kotlin, Python, or similar)
Strong frontend experience with Angular, or equivalent frameworks
Significant experience building and operating production systems on AWS
Hands‑on experience deploying and managing applications on Kubernetes
Proven ability to work in ambiguous problem spaces and drive clarity via research and experimentation
Experience building or integrating AI‑powered features using Large Language Models
Kubernetes & Cloud‑Native Experience
Experience with Kubernetes fundamentals: pods, deployments, services, ingress, and autoscaling
Experience running production workloads on EKS or comparable Kubernetes platforms
Familiarity with container security, resource optimization, and operational best practices
Experience debugging and operating distributed systems in containerized environments
AI & Discovery Experience
Experience with prompt design, evaluation, and iterative experimentation
Familiarity with RAG architectures, tool‑using agents, or workflow orchestration
Ability to reason critically about AI behavior rather than treating models as black boxes
Preferred Qualifications
Experience building SaaS or platform products using AWS and Kubernetes
Experience with service meshes, event‑driven architectures, or workflow orchestration
Experience influencing technical strategy or platform architecture
Prior experience mentoring engineers or leading cross‑team initiatives
How You’ll Be Successful in This Role
You enjoy tackling poorly defined problems and discovering the right solution
You balance experimentation with engineering rigor
You make thoughtful architectural decisions grounded in tradeoffs and data
You care deeply about production reliability, maintainability, and user experience
You are excited about applying AI and cloud‑native technologies responsibly and at scale
You enjoy coaching and helping others mature in their roles
Why Join Us
Work on complex problems where discovery, AI, and cloud‑native architecture matter
Shape how AI systems are deployed and scaled on Kubernetes
Collaborate with experienced engineers and product leaders
Have real influence over system architecture and technical direction
Continue growing as a senior technologist while staying hands‑on
Disclaimer: This position description provides the major duties/responsibilities, requirements and working conditions for the position. It is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current position, however management reserves the right to revise or change as necessary to meet organizational needs. Other responsibilities may be assigned when circumstances require.
This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.
LI-JW1
Position & Application Details
Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.
How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.
Additional Information
Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.
Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.
Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.
