Technical Lead, Software Development, Cloud Engineer - Software

About Stellic

We’re building a future where every student can move through their education with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Our platform transforms the student experience, giving them the tools they need to make the right decisions about their degree plans, track their journey, and build an education and career path that’s truly their own.

Stellic is a fast‑growing startup backed by leading social‑impact investors, partnering with top institutions such as Cornell, Columbia, UVA, and Ohio State to support over 1 million students across seven countries. As we scale to serve more universities worldwide, we remain deeply committed to this mission, driven by our values, and dedicated to building a high‑performance team that can make a lasting difference in the lives of students.

Stellic engineers combine a rare blend of curiosity, creativity, and business acumen with the ability to deliver pragmatic solutions at high velocity while maintaining uncompromising quality. Our mission is to help students, and our engineers always keep that in mind as they build.

Stellic is at a significant crossroads. Having proved incredibly strong product‑market fit and maintained enviable customer NPS ratings, it’s time to prepare for the next stages of evolution. As we have grown, parts of our architecture have been pushed to their limits. We’re investing in the next phase of scale while continuing to deliver ambitious product roadmaps and are looking for technical leaders who can evolve our backend systems and elevate the team to delight our users with new product capabilities.

• Drive alignment on the prioritization of engineering‑driven priorities alongside product priorities.
• Design and lead the implementation of scalable backend architectures for mission‑critical enterprise applications.
• Build and maintain clean, ergonomic APIs to handle complex business logic and data flows.
• Develop and optimize database schemas and queries to process terabytes of data efficiently.
• Identify and introduce abstractions to increase the performance and reliability of our systems.
• Drive engineering excellence by defining and mentoring on best practices, design patterns, and code quality.
• Ensure quality by designing robust testing strategies and implementing suites of reliable tests.

• 5+ years of experience as a backend engineer operating at scale.
• Strong ownership mindset and the ability to autonomously lead and drive complex implementations.
• Deep curiosity, customer empathy, and a commitment to engineering as a craft.
• Ability to plan, estimate, and manage the technical aspects of project execution and delivery.
• Excellent problem‑solving skills.
• Desire to mentor junior developers.
• Clear and effective communication skills for collaborating with product, design, and customer‑facing teams.
• Deep experience with backend engineering using high‑level programming languages and frameworks – ORMs, RESTful APIs, background jobs, real‑time streaming, etc.
• Strong proficiency in designing and optimizing SQL databases and complex SQL queries (Postgre
  
  SQL a plus).
• Experience with asynchronous / event‑based architectures.
• Strong background in API design, documentation, and versioning strategies.
• Solid understanding of software testing, CI/CD practices, observability, etc.

• Languages:
  
  Python, SQL, Shell
• Frameworks:
  Django, Angular, React, Remix
• Databases:
  Postgre
  
  SQL, Elastic Search, Redis
• Version control:
  Git (Git Hub)
• Cloud: AWS
• Deployment: AWS Code Deploy
• Observability & Analytics:
  Sentry, Grafana, Prometheus, Post Hog, Metabase
• Architecture:
  Both single and multi‑tenant

• Shape the future of an impact‑driven company at the forefront of higher education transformation.
• Work closely with an ambitious, mission‑driven leadership team.
• A culture of excellence, speed, and ownership.
• Learn from prominent thought leaders in higher education and SaaS.
• Generous stock options in a Series‑A stage startup.
• Flexible, outcome‑based culture.
• Comprehensive health insurance for you and your family.
• 401(k) and commuter benefits.
• Annual international retreats in beautiful locations.

$210,000 – $260,000 base salary, plus equity.

At Stellic, total compensation packages are tailored to each candidate and take into account job‑related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, training, and current market conditions.

Candidates must be willing to collaborate in‑office in San Mateo three days per week as part of our hybrid work culture.

Our company values diversity and believes diverse teams make innovation possible. We encourage all qualified applicants from any race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or other characteristics to apply.