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 expanding platforms relied upon by thousands of students and teams worldwide:
- TimeBack: An educational platform supporting Alpha School's 2-hour learning framework (producing 99th percentile test outcomes).
- Incept: A content generation system delivering all personalized educational materials for various learning applications deployed at Alpha School.
- Crossover: An AI-driven hiring platform managing tens of thousands of monthly applicants, recruiting for schools and organizations across the globe.
You will take ownership of one platform and dedicate the majority of your time to developing its most technically demanding components within a compact team (3-5 experienced engineers, no junior contributors). The architectural choices you make will directly dictate how effectively other teams can build new applications, integrate seamlessly, and deliver value to students. Sound architecture creates exponential leverage. Poor decisions generate integration chaos and degrade velocity across numerous teams.
You are responsible for both building and operating what you architect. You define quality benchmarks and technical patterns for your platform. Our approach is specification-driven: design precedes implementation, planning comes before construction. You will have high autonomy, no committees, and no approval boards. You will work within a small, tightly coordinated team where accountability for deliverables is clear.
What you will be doing
- Technical Leadership: Drive strategic architectural choices and define technical standards for the team.
- AI Leadership: Champion the integration of emerging AI methodologies and develop impactful operational playbooks.
- Implementation: Construct the intricate, mission-critical portions of the codebase in collaboration with your team.
- Quality Reviews: Validate that your team adheres to defined patterns and upholds quality expectations.
What you will NOT be doing
- Serving as an architect detached from hands-on implementation
- Spending excessive time in meetings
- Managing personnel (this role focuses on technical leadership, not people management)
- Maintaining legacy systems or handling internal IT infrastructure
Candidate requirements
- A minimum of 5 years of professional software development experience delivering software products
- At least 3 years in a lead engineer capacity (conducting code reviews) or as an architect (driving critical technical decisions)
- Demonstrated experience building platform-level products where your APIs were consumed by other teams
- Active and deep involvement with AI tools, continuously exploring and expanding their application
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
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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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