About This Role:
We are seeking a Lead Software Engineer for the Newsela Writing product engineering team. This is an IC-heavy technical leadership role (~50-70% coding) with no direct reports. The Lead Software Engineer owns technical direction, code quality standards, and day-to-day engineering coordination for the writing-app (Next.js, node.js, and Python backends).
Why You'll Love This Role:
- Own architecture decisions for the writing-app and evaluate technical trade-offs that balance speed, quality, and maintainability.
- Define and evolve the team's technical standards (coding patterns, testing expectations, dependency management) and drive technical debt reduction alongside feature work.
- Lead triage and technical coordination during incidents. Drive root cause analysis and propose preventive measures. Be the first responder when production issues arise for the writing product.
- Actively drive technical discussions in grooming, planning, standups, and retros. Ensure technical decisions are documented where appropriate.
What You'll Be Doing:
- Review significant PRs and provide substantive feedback, catch architectural issues before they merge, and ensure PRs are appropriately sized and scoped.
- Drive obstacle resolution during sprints - unblock engineers, make technical calls, escalate when needed. Identify and flag risks early.
- Translate between product requirements and technical implementation for the team. Communicate technical status, risks, and trade-offs clearly to the Engineering Manager and stakeholders.
- Leverage AI/LLM-powered workflows and code-generation tools (e.g., Claude Code, Copilot) to stay efficient and productive, with code reviews to ensure quality and security.
About You:
- 5+ years building modern web applications in a SaaS environment, with significant full-stack experience.
- Strong proficiency in React/Next.js (frontend) and Python (backend). Comfortable with database design, API architecture, and frontend state management.
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, deployment processes, and monitoring (Datadog or similar).
- Experience with rich text editors, document collaboration, or ProseMirror/similar frameworks is a strong plus.
- Comfort using AI-assisted coding tools (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor) responsibly with security and license awareness.
- Demonstrated ab