Distinguished Engineer

If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country-and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future-consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Technical 414 Pay Range: $226,200.00 - $350,500.00

Job Description

The Distinguished Software Engineer is a hands-on technical leadership role responsible for advancing WGU's software engineering practices, technical standards, architecture, and quality at enterprise scale. This role operates at the highest level of technical expertise, partnering closely with Principal and Senior Principal Engineers, engineering leaders, Product Management, and executive stakeholders to shape technology strategy and deliver solutions that are secure, scalable, reliable, observable, and built for long-term reuse.

The Distinguished Software Engineer serves as a technical thought leader across WGU, establishing engineering standards and raising the quality of software delivery across teams and domains. This includes designing and delivering high-quality software, advancing automation and self-service capabilities, enabling observability and operational controls, and developing self-healing and resilient engineering practices.

This individual pioneers new technologies and approaches that advance WGU's student experience and technology platform. They evaluate emerging technologies, develop prototypes and proofs of concept, and translate innovative ideas into practical, scalable solutions. The Distinguished Software Engineer brings deep expertise in modern software engineering, architecture, cloud technologies, security, reliability, and development practices while understanding how technology decisions support WGU's broader business and student-success objectives.

The role also has significant organizational influence. The Distinguished Software Engineer mentors engineers and technical leaders, strengthens engineering communities of practice, communicates complex technical strategies and trade-offs to executives, and helps establish a culture of technical excellence, collaboration, innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement aligned with WGU's Leadership Principles.

Job Duties

• Pioneer new technology approaches that advance WGU's online higher-education platform, student experience, engineering capabilities, and operational efficiency.

• Define and advance enterprise engineering standards for software development, architecture, quality, security, reliability, observability, automation, and operational excellence.

• Provide technical leadership for complex software and data architecture , developing solutions that satisfy functional and non-functional requirements while remaining scalable, resilient, secure, reusable, and cost-effective.

• Partner with Principal and Senior Principal Engineers to establish and continuously improve engineering practices, technical standards, and delivery artifacts across the organization.

• Partner with technology leaders and Product Management to shape technology strategy, evaluate priorities, and make informed commitments to technical deliverables within WGU's broader planning processes.

• Lead the design and delivery of high-quality software while maintaining a hands-on presence in architecture, coding, prototyping, technical reviews, and complex problem solving.

• Drive engineering quality and consistency by establishing coding standards, development practices, design patterns, testing strategies, and approaches that improve the overall quality and maintainability of WGU's technology ecosystem.

• Design for enterprise scale, reliability, and performance , particularly within public cloud and SaaS environments, using data and operational metrics to evaluate system health and key performance indicators.

• Advance observability, auditability, security, and operational controls , including automated monitoring, self-service capabilities, automated remediation, and self-healing pipelines.

• Identify and address architectural risks, dependencies, and technical constraints , clearly communicating trade-offs and mitigation strategies to technical and executive stakeholders.

• Evaluate emerging technologies, tools, languages, frameworks, and engineering practices ; develop prototypes and proofs of concept and communicate recommendations and findings to technical communities and leadership.

• Act as a resident technical expert and trusted advisor to engineering teams, providing guidance on complex technical challenges, architecture, new technologies, and engineering practices.

• Mentor and develop engineers and technical leaders , helping teams build deeper technical capabilities and raising the quality and effectiveness of engineering across WGU.

• Strengthen engineering communities and culture by sharing knowledge, establishing best practices, encouraging collaboration, and promoting continuous improvement.

• Translate complex technical strategies into clear business outcomes , presenting solution approaches, risks, trade-offs, and recommendations at the appropriate level for executives and other stakeholders.

• Engage with external technical communities and represent WGU's engineering innovation through appropriate industry forums, communities, and thought leadership.

• Partner with Operations and platform teams to diagnose and resolve system-level issues and improve reliability, scalability, and operational effectiveness.

• Identify opportunities to improve WGU's education platform and engineering efficiency , leveraging change-management practices to drive adoption of new technologies and approaches.

• Support initiatives focused on student success , ensuring technology decisions ultimately contribute to a high-quality, scalable, student-focused experience.

• Execute against department OKRs and other organizational priorities.

• Perform other job-related duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.

• 15+ years of progressive software engineering experience , including experience pioneering new technologies or engineering approaches in complex, fast-paced environments.

• Demonstrated experience providing technical leadership across multiple engineering teams or large-scale technology initiatives .

• Extensive experience designing and developing web-based applications and web services.

• Strong experience with Java, REST, SQL, Git , and modern software engineering technologies.

• Experience integrating third-party products and enterprise systems.

• Demonstrated experience with software architecture, technical standards, and engineering quality practices.

• Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this position may substitute for education requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as one year of relevant experience for one year of education, at the discretion of the hiring manager.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.

• Experience with Java, Spring, Spring Boot, Oracle, SQL, Git, Angular 2+, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) .

• Deep experience with cloud-native application development and enterprise-scale distributed systems.

• Experience establishing engineering standards, architecture practices, or technical communities across large organizations.

• Experience with observability, automated testing, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, self-service engineering platforms, or self-healing systems.

• Experience working in or supporting online or distance education environments .

• Strong understanding of the needs and technology challenges associated with serving distance-learning students at scale.

• Demonstrated experience evaluating and adopting emerging technologies to solve complex business or engineering problems.

• Experience communicating technology strategy and architecture to senior executives and organizational leadership.

Position & Application Details

Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It's not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at View email address on click.appcast.io.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.