Staff Software Engineer $200,000 USD/year Pay is set based on global value, not the local market.
Most roles = hourly rate x 40 hrs x 50 weeks
Description
We are building platforms at scale that support thousands of students and teams across multiple applications:
- TimeBack: An educational platform that enables Alpha School's 2-hour learning model, delivering 99th percentile test outcomes.
- Incept: A content generation platform responsible for producing all personalized educational materials used across Alpha School's learning applications.
- Crossover: An AI-driven hiring platform managing tens of thousands of applicant evaluations monthly, supporting global staffing for schools and enterprises.
You will take ownership of one platform and dedicate the majority of your time to constructing the most technically demanding components of the system, working alongside a compact team of 3-5 experienced engineers. Junior engineers are not part of this structure. The architectural choices you make will directly influence how efficiently other teams can develop new applications, integrate seamlessly, and deliver meaningful outcomes to students. Successful decisions create significant leverage. Poor ones lead to integration complexity and diminished productivity across the organization.
You are responsible for both building and operating the systems you design. You define quality standards and technical patterns for your platform. Our process is specification-driven: design precedes implementation, and planning always comes before execution. You will have substantial autonomy—no committees, no review boards. This is a small, focused team where accountability for what you deliver rests with you.
What you will be doing
- Technical Leadership: Define strategic architectural approaches and set technical patterns that guide the team's work.
- AI Leadership: Champion the integration of emerging AI workflows and develop actionable, high-value playbooks.
- Implementation: Directly construct the complex, mission-critical sections of the codebase working in tandem with your team.
- Quality Reviews: Validate that your team adheres to established patterns and upholds the required quality benchmarks.
What you will NOT be doing
- Designing architecture without hands-on implementation
- Spending excessive time in meetings
- Managing personnel (this is a technical leadership position, not a people management role)
- Maintaining legacy systems or supporting internal IT infrastructure
Candidate requirements
- A minimum of 5 years of professional software development experience creating software products
- A minimum of 3 years in a lead engineer capacity (conducting code reviews) or architect role (driving critical technical decisions)
- Proven experience developing platform-level products where other teams integrated with your APIs
- Active and deep involvement with AI tools, consistently exploring and testing new capabilities
Meet the hiring manager
Applying for a role? Here’s what to expect.
Crossover's skill assessment process combines innovative AI power with decades of human research, to take the guesswork, human bias, and pointless filters out of recruiting high-performing teams.
Chat-style
screening interview.
Cognitive 
aptitude test.
Prove real-world 
job skills.
Interview with the hiring manager.
Accept job offer.
Pass
proctored test.
Frequently asked questions
About the role
Reviews
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The Olympics of work
It’s super hard to qualify—extreme quality standards ensure every single team member is at the top of their game.
Premium pay for premium talent
Over 50% of new hires double or triple their previous pay. Why? Because that’s what the best person in the world is worth.
Shortlist by skills, not bias
We don’t care where you went to school, what color your hair is, or whether we can pronounce your name. Just prove you’ve got the skills.
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