Senior Software Engineer (AI-First, Full-Stack, AWS, Kubernetes)

If youre passionate about building a better future for individuals communities and our countryand youre committed to working hard to play your part in building that futureconsider 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:

Job Description

Role Overview

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 endtoend engineering skills across frontend and backend systems along with handson experience designing and delivering AIpowered 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 productionready solutions. You will work closely with product design and engineering partners to shape userfacing experiences and cloudnative containerized platform capabilities.

This is a handson senior individual contributor role with strong ownership of architecture delivery and mentoring.

What Youll Do

Technical Discovery & Research

• Lead research and discovery for complex ambiguous problem spaces through architectural spikes prototypes and proofofconcepts
• Evaluate new technologies AWS services Kubernetes patterns and AI capabilities
• Perform buildvsbuy and managedservice vs. selfmanaged tradeoff analyses
• Translate findings into clear architectural direction and implementation plans

AI & Large Language Models

• Design implement and evaluate AIpowered features using Large Language Models
• Apply prompt engineering retrievalaugmented generation (RAG) and agentbased workflows
• Design AI systems that account for latency cost reliability observability and safety
• Deploy AI services in containerized environments and integrate them with cloudnative infrastructure
• Stay current with applied AI/LLM advancements and production best practices

FullStack Engineering

• Own features endtoend 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 & CloudNative Architecture

• Design deploy and operate cloudnative 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 zerodowntime deployments and safe rollout strategies (e.g. blue/green canary)
• Participate in oncall 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 handson collaboration
• Partner with product managers and designers to align technical solutions with user needs
• Communicate clearly about technical tradeoffs risks and system behavior

What Were Looking For

Required Qualifications

• 6 years of professional software engineering experience
• Bachelors 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
• Handson 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 AIpowered features using Large Language Models

Kubernetes & CloudNative 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 toolusing 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 eventdriven architectures or workflow orchestration
• Experience influencing technical strategy or platform architecture
• Prior experience mentoring engineers or leading crossteam initiatives

How Youll 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 cloudnative 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 cloudnative 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 handson

Job Description 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.

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Position & Application Details

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. Its 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

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.