Senior Software Engineer

About Niche
Niche is the leader in school search. Our mission is to make researching and enrolling in schools easy, transparent, and free. With in-depth profiles on every school and college in America, 140 million reviews and ratings, and powerful search tools, we help millions of people find the right school for them. We also help thousands of schools recruit more best-fit students, by highlighting what makes them great and making it easier to visit and apply.

Niche is all about finding where you belong, and that mission inspires how we operate every day. We want Niche to be a place where people truly enjoy working and can thrive professionally.

About the Role
We're looking for a senior-level Software Engineer to join our growing Front End team. The ideal candidate will not only be strong technically, but also be a driven, resourceful and systematic team player. The focus of a Sr. Front End Engineer will be to:

• Create the user interfaces of our web and native mobile applications
• Mentor other team members while helping maintain and upgrade the frameworks, processes and systems that support front end development
• Collaborate with designers to implement mockups with HTML/CSS/JavaScript
• Developing server-side JavaScript that interfaces with micro services developed by backend engineers
• Develop a robust cross-browser experience for mobile and desktop devices
• Participate in code reviews and provide thoughtful, constructive feedback to other team members
• Generate and improve documentation of our applications, processes, and utilization of various frameworks and technologies
• Plan new features and improvements to the tech stack
• Champion the adoption of software engineering best practices within the team and organization

  
What You Will Do

During the 1st Month:

• Collaborate with various team members to learn about how your role fits within the team, the tech department, and Niche
• Shadow Front End team members to learn more about our tech stack, the products we support, and our development process
• Begin shipping user-facing code that will be seen by millions of people
• Attend onboarding sessions to better understand our internal processes and learn about the company

Within 3 Months:

• Join a product team and begin working within an Agile development framework, collaborating with another Front End team member to break down and implement new features
• Solidify understanding of the breadth of our tech stack, including the capabilities of our back end services, how they interact with our user-facing applications, and how we validate and deploy new functionality to our production infrastructure
• Grow as a contributing member of a product team, providing input and insight to the rest of the team on challenges and feasibility of proposed development, as well as mentoring less experienced Front End team members you may be paired with
• Take initiative in finding opportunities to provide thoughtful, constructive feedback to other Front End team members through code reviews, pair programming, technical presentations to the team, etc.

Within 6 Months:

• Confidently implement new functionality and fix bugs across a variety of Front End projects
• Identify areas for improvement in our codebase, researching best practices, and making recommendations to the team and external stakeholders on strategies to address them
• Serve as a subject matter expert for one or more areas of our Front End systems
• Mentor other team members on best practices in relation to at least one aspect of Front End software development

What We Are Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, relevant training, or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of professional web or mobile development
• Expertise in modern JavaScript, CSS, and HTML
• Experience developing server-side applications
• Expertise with at least one Javascript framework for building user interfaces, such as React
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, both verbal and written
• Knowledge of software engineering best practices
• Experience planning the implementation of new features and technical improvements
   

Why Niche?

• Full time, salaried position with competitive compensation
• Comprehensive health plan, including vision and dental, provided at no cost to the employee.
• 20 PTO days, 10 Paid Holidays and 3 Volunteer Days Off per year
• Parental leave
• Stock options and 401(k)
• Your ideas and work will make an immediate impact on our company and millions of users

Niche will only employ those who are legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future for this opening.

Candidates only.  No recruiters or agencies, please. All of our open positions are located in our Pittsburgh, PA office. Sorry, we do not offer relocation assistance.

Niche is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. Therefore, we provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law.

If there are preparations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please let us know.