Senior Software Engineer

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Big Think is a new media publisher exploring the world’s biggest questions with the world’s biggest thinkers. We release short-form interview videos with academics, researchers, scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs, and activists who are grappling with the world’s biggest and most interesting questions.

Big Think and our e-Learning platform, Big Think+, are part of Freethink Media, a platform for people and ideas that are changing the world. Across our two flagship sites, Freethink and Big Think, we publish over 50 new articles and short documentaries every week to a community of more than 10 million followers and subscribers.


About the Role:


Big Think+ is disrupting the traditional market of bland and generic training content taught by no-name moderators. We provide a highly-curated library of expert-led, L&D-designed lessons that enable transformation and drive culture by focusing on developing mindsets and behaviors instead of skills.


As a Senior Software Engineer at Big Think+, you will plan, architect, and implement features from our Product Roadmap within our proprietary platform, helping learners reach their goals and enabling customers to see the results of their educational investments.


In this role, you will collaborate closely with a cross-functional team, including Product Management & Design, Sales, Marketing, and Educational Content Creators, to deliver impactful, user-centered solutions. Your expertise in designing system architecture, ensuring a stable platform through system administration tasks, and collaborating with the Lead Software Engineer to build a resilient and knowledgeable engineering function will be crucial to our success.

What You'll Do

  • Enhance and Innovate the BT+ Platform – Leverage your Ruby on Rails experience to plan, architect and implement features from our Product Roadmap.
  • Collaborate across the business – Partner with the Big Think+ product, content, and sales teams to understand customer needs and implement features that drive important outcomes.
  • Monitor, analyze, and improve the stack – Continuously analyze the performance and security characteristics of the full application stack to ensure the platform remains available, performant, and secure for our growing business customer base.
  • Develop and maintain documentation and test suites – Ensure comprehensive and up-to-date application documentation and test suites are in place, making them easily accessible and integral to the development process.
  • Ensure security – Integrate security best practices into the software development lifecycle by working closely with cross-functional teams to protect our platform from potential threats.
  • Integrate with Learning Systems – Lead the integration of the Big Think+ platform with various Learning Management Systems (LMS), Learning Experience Platforms (LXP), and other third-party systems to ensure seamless user experiences and data flow.
What You'll Need:
  • Positive, can-do attitude 
  • Excellent communication, problem-solving, organizational, and time management skills
  • 4-7 years of experience working with web-based applications as a software engineer
  • Strong, recent experience with the modern Rails stack
  • Knowledge of and skill with one or more of PostgreSQL, Render (or other PaaS), full-stack development, multi-tenant architectures, web application performance, secure software development, learning management systems, and enterprise IT integration
What You'll Get out of the Opportunity:
  • Be a member of the Engineering team, with significant influence and autonomy to shape its growth as well as your own role
  • Collaborative culture in a startup environment
  • Competitive salary and benefits including: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, and Disability Insurance, 401(k) and more!
  • Growth opportunities within a fast-growing company
  • Work from home – we’ve been remote-first from inception