Senior Backend Engineer

Abl is on a mission to improve the public education system in the US. They are building a platform that offers advanced, data-driven software and services to help school and district leaders operate more efficiently and identify and remove barriers to equity. 

The Role

We are looking to add a talented Backend Software Engineer to be a part of the team that builds the systems that will power Abl's data collection, equity analyses, and student recommendations. The role will involve a high degree of curiosity, empathy and eagerness to learn, often in cross-collaboration with other departments. 

In this role you will:

• Build tools for users throughout the education domain - from superintendents to students - to help them make strategic choices towards achieving their goals

• Design and implement systems that help schools solve for multi-objective optimization problems, e.g. to maximize equity and justice goals for students given finite resources

• Map a complex domain with inter-related entities, data, and processes

• Help design, build, and maintain the infrastructure needed to achieve our goals performantly and at scale

• Foster inclusive relationships and collaborate cross functionally with incredible designers, data scientists, education experts and other engineers.

Ideal candidate has:

• Experienced building backend systems, utilizing modern frameworks and libraries, which we have seen to be 3+ years of relevant experience
• Strong fundamentals in software engineering, especially with Ruby (and Rails). We also have some small code in Python and we maintain several PostgreSQL databases associated with our Rails apps.
• A faster learner mentality who can quickly pick up new technologies.
• An evidence-based mindset - strong opinions, weakly held; a dedication to measurable impact
• An eagerness towards collaboration, with strong communication and interpersonal skills

Bonus Points if:

• Strong fundamentals in stream processing and data processing systems. (Kafka, DynamoDB, BigQuery, Parquet, ect.)
• Experienced working at remote first tech start up
• Passionate about education and equity
• B.A/B.S in Computer Science or related field

Note to Candidates: Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they check all the boxes listed in a job description. We are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job, and that candidate may be one who comes from a less traditional background. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't believe you meet every one of our qualifications described.