Senior Software Engineer, Newsela
Backend
$130-157.5k
+ Incentive stock options
Online platform for education content
Be an early applicant
Online platform for education content
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
$130-157.5k
+ Incentive stock options
201-500 employees
Company mission
To provide meaningful classroom learning for every student.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with a strong foundation in building scalable backend systems
- Advanced proficiency in our core stack (or similar technologies), including:
- Experience working with AWS infrastructure, including tools such as Terraform, ECS, RDS/Aurora, SES, and messaging systems like SQS/SNS
- Proven ability to manage multiple projects and priorities, maintaining strong attention to detail and delivering high-quality work on time
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate technical concepts, trade-offs, and decisions to a range of stakeholders
- Comfortable working in ambiguous and evolving environments, with a proactive and solutions-oriented mindset
- Experience collaborating across teams to drive alignment, communicate progress, and deliver against shared goals
- Experience operating in environments with broad scope and ambiguity, with the ability to work across multiple areas of the stack
- Experience with education or education technology a plus
What the job involves
- As a Sr. Software Engineer you will be part of the EveryDay Labs team within Newsela
- Your work will have a direct and meaningful impact on student outcomes helping school districts reduce absenteeism and increase learning time for students who need it most
- You’ll have the opportunity to work on both complex, existing systems and build new products from the ground up, giving you meaningful ownership and visibility into how your work drives impact
- In this role, you’ll be part of a collaborative and mission-driven team where clean code, thoughtful design, and continuous improvement are core to how we work
- You’ll engage in an environment that values constructive feedback, strong engineering practices, and shared problem solving, while also having the space to take initiative and make a tangible difference across our product, team, and the communities we serve
- Design, build, and maintain components of our software platform that support attendance analytics, process management, and family communication tools
- Maintain and improve our student and attendance data systems, ensuring they remain performant and scalable as they grow to support tens of millions of records
- Develop new features that enhance product capabilities and drive meaningful outcomes for schools and students
- Automate operational and monitoring processes to support system reliability and scalability
- Optimize and enhance our AWS infrastructure to improve performance, efficiency, and system resilience
- Contribute to technical discussions and help shape practical, scalable solutions, balancing speed, quality, and long-term maintainability
- Partner with cross-functional teams to translate product needs into technical solutions and deliver high-quality outcomes
Application process
- All offers of employment are contingent upon the successful completion of a background check as part of our pre-employment process
Our take
While textbooks have been standard issue in classrooms for centuries, digital instructional materials are now more prevalent. Newsela offers a learning platform that curates and rewrites news articles, historical speeches, and scientific papers to help accelerate learning.
The platform is available in both English and Spanish and includes quizzes, exercises, and writing prompts to help engage students at any level. Millions of teachers and K-12 students use the platform, which has proved extremely popular so far.
In 2021, the company reached unicorn status. Since then, research has shown that Newsela is 70% more effective at promoting reading skills compared to an average summer reading program. This demonstrates the value it brings to the space, and places it well for continued expansion and innovation.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
16% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Feb 2021
$100m
SERIES D
Mar 2019
$50m
SERIES C
Total funding: $172.2m
Company benefits
- Healthcare (pets included)
- Continue your learning - on us!
- Discounts and resources to stay healthy
- Commuter savings (trains/bikes)
- Generous time off for your most important job — maternity, paternity, and adoption
- Unlimited time Off
Company HQ
Theater District, New York, NY
Leadership
Dan Cogan-Drew
(Co-Founder & Chief Academic Officer)A qualified teacher with extensive and varied experience. Recent roles include Director of Programs at EDUCATION CONNECTION and Director of Digital Learning at Achievement First Public Charter Schools.
Matthew Gross
(Co-Founder & Director)Former CEO of the company. Co-founded and was CEO at Grouper Education. Was also a Board Member at New Classrooms, Executive Director at Regents Research Fund and VP at PENCIL.
Pep Carrera
(CEO)Board Member at Follett Higher Education. Was CEO at Nearpod, President at ProQuest, and President and COO at VitalSource Technologies.
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