POSITION: 

SOFTWARE ENGINEER

FULL STACK: REACT ⚫ NODEJS ⚫ MYSQL ⚫ KUBERNETES

About Catalyst Education

Founded by higher education science educators with a strong history of innovation, Catalyst Education builds powerful digital teaching and learning software focused on STEM disciplines. Our technologies save instructors time so they can focus on providing an educational experience that their students will find valuable and inspirational. More information at www.catalystedu.com

Engineering team’s “elevator pitch”

• Mission driven team

• Building great STEM education products 

• Awesome team culture

• Focused on quality

• Ownership from design to delivery

• Fail fast, learn and adjust

• Scaling for hundreds of thousands of users

• Occasional witty banter

Role Overview

As a software engineer, you will be responsible for contributing to software design and full-stack development for our flagship product, Labflow. The software that is delivered should support the user stories that are defined by the team’s product manager. 

Catalyst is also looking to amplify Labflow’s capabilities and features using gen AI functionality. This will be an amazing opportunity while working with some help from Google.

You will be responsible for creating unit tests and integration tests when necessary, while always manually testing any user story or defect that you have completed. 

In addition to delivering software, communication and interaction with all parts of the business may be needed at any given time. Understanding our internal and external stakeholders is critical to delivering thoughtful solutions.

Desired technology buzzwords! 

• Node.js

• React.js w/ Redux

• MySQL

• Google Spanner

• Webpack

• Kubernetes

• Microservices

• MACH architecture

• Google Cloud Platform

• Gemini LLM & VertexAI (desired)

Role Duties

• Software design and development

• Co-worker pairing and mentoring

• Daily stand-up participation

• Support ticket debugging

• Interacting with the Faculty Success team and other stakeholders

• Expanded acceptance criteria creation for the QA team

• Tight cooperation with the QA team to deliver release candidates

• Unit test creation (and some integration test creation)

Traits and Experience

• 3-5 years of hands-on software development experience in a team environment

• A sense of ownership and pride in your performance and its impact on the company’s success

• Critical thinker and problem-solving skills

• Team player

• Good time-management skills

• Great interpersonal and communication skills

• Self starter

• Technology skills 

• BS degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or similar degree

Culture!

We believe in a culture of psychological safety and no-blame. Everyone has a voice and we respect each other. If a problem occurs the collective team investigates and looks for solutions.

We have a foundational belief in lean and agile principles - delivering product features and enhancements rapidly with confidence and not fear.

Everyone takes ownership of what we deliver. We are a team, not many armies of one. The engineering team is responsible for delivering a software product, not just code.

We have a casual work environment and flexible start times. If you like Slack, Google Meets, and Gmail, you will like our communication flow.

Our stakeholders and content creators usually have PhDs in their respective fields - it’s inspiring to work with so many really smart people.

We are looking for the right candidate that fits our culture and aligns with our engineering philosophies. If you think you may be the right candidate, we look forward to hearing from you.

HR Stuff…

Opportunities for Decision-Making

Is the employee responsible for making decisions or recommendations on: 

Work operations (e.g. scheduling, procedures, priorities)? Yes; setting personal schedules and prioritizing JIRA tickets collectively with the team

Expenditure of company funds? No

Formation of departments or company policies? No

Hiring and firing of employees and contractors: No

Waiving or creating exemptions to company or department policies? No

Interactions with Outside Parties

Does the employee interact with vendors, authors, consultants, etc.? Yes; Occasionally interact with instructors, students and vendors

Supervisory Responsibilities

Does the employee supervise employees (if so, how many and how)? No

Physical Requirements 

Must be able to:

• Travel - if remote, expect 2-3 days per quarter on average minimally to HQ; if local to HQ, expect 2-3 days per month to HQ office 

• Sit for long periods

• Participate in communications throughout the day 

• Work overtime (more than 40 hours a week): as needed

Important Note: This description is for reference only. It is not meant to provide an exhaustive description of the duties that may be required of an employee in this position. It does not create a contract between the Company and any employee.