About us: 

CommonBond is the award-winning fintech company where people come first. Our approach is no big secret: lower rates, simpler options, and a world-class experience to support people throughout their student loan journey. Plus, every time we fund a degree we also pay for a child’s education through our Social Promise. Since our launch in 2012, we’ve funded over $4 billion in student loans and we’ve helped our members save over $1 billion.

We are seeking a Principal Engineer to make significant contributions to our applications and technical strategy. This role requires knowledge and experience in all aspects of cloud technology including system architecture, application development, container platforms, modern data services, security, monitoring and cost management. 

• Collaborate with other professionals to determine functional and non-functional requirements for new software or applications 
• Use tools and methodologies to create representations for functions and user interface of desired product 
• Develop high-level product specifications with attention to system integration and feasibility 
• Define all aspects of development from appropriate technology and workflow to coding standards 
• Oversee progress of development team to ensure consistency with initial design 
• Provide technical guidance and coaching to developers and engineers. Ensure software meets all requirements of quality, security, modifiability, extensibility etc
• Participate in all Scrum sessions – planning, grooming, reviews and retrospectives 
• Work with product management and stakeholders to define a product backlog 
• Work with your team do develop a committed sprint backlog 
• Contribute to the technical and process innovation of the Engineering department 
• Collaborate with other development teams and cross functional groups 
• Lead an Agile team of 3-6 developers, designers, Tech Lead and product managers who form a product development team 
• Contribute to effective code reviews on more than just the technical correctness of the code (quality, eng best practices, etc.) 
• Coach and mentor team members to accentuate their strengths 

What you’ll be working with:  

• High-level stack information: Go, Java, Python, Javascript (React, Next.js), PostgreSQL, NATS & AWS  
• Testing stack information: Cucumber, Kotlin, Java, Selenium, Jenkins, Saucelabs  
• More stack information: https://stackshare.io/companies/commonbond  
• A team of passionate, curious, and innovative professionals  

What you’ll bring 

• Overall 8+ years of experience with: 
• 6+ years hands-on experience in object-oriented design and development with exposure to working with databases 
• 2+ years hands-on experience in architecting, building and maintaining scalable, performant, secure platforms 
• Continuously raise our standard of engineering excellence by implementing and driving best practices for coding, testing, and deployment 
• You have a deep understanding of data structures, algorithms and object-oriented design, and have used them to solve real-world problems 
• Articulate the trade-offs, benefits and risks of all architecture and design solutions 
• Execute the hands-on implementation of proposed solutions and provide technical guidance to teams during the solutions' development and deployment phases 
• Ability to work independently as well as function as an integral part of a team, take initiative and contribute in a fast-paced environment along with the ability to do quick prototypes 
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills to collaborate with stakeholders, business users, and executives, and the ability to communicate technical solutions in business terms. 
• Able to balance multiple projects concurrently and manage changes in scope along the way 
• Significant experience with SOA/microservices and event-driven architectures 
• Thorough understanding of Java, Go, Python, Javascript (React, Next.js), Postgres, NATS  
• An interest in using the best tool for the job. Our current favorites are React, Go, Nats, Postgres. 
• Experience with highly scalable, containerized, micro service architecture required (kubernetes a plus!)  
• Hands-on experience with cloud tools, services and technologies (preferably AWS) 
• Solid working knowledge of Agile CI/CD tools and practices (build/release, Git, pipelines, scripting etc) 
• Working knowledge of Quality Assurance automation frameworks and tools, and agile testing best practices (e.g TDD) 
• Facilitate technical discussions across teams and organizations 

 Our Engineering values: 

• We believe that ideas are more important than technologies. 
• We understand that the software we build has real-world consequences and take that responsibility seriously. 
• We know that code isn’t just a set of instructions for machines, but communication with other humans; style, elegance, and respect are important. 
• We believe that an ability to balance paying off technical debt and rapidly completing a project contributes to the health of the codebase, engineering team, and organization. 

You can work in our New York City HQ; or remotely from anywhere in the US (EST working hours). Due to the on-going pandemic of COVID-19, if you choose to work from our NYC HQ, it is likely that you’ll start working remotely. 

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.