Sr. Lead Engineer, PowerFAIDS

College Board - Technology - PowerFAIDS

Location: This is a fully remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office)

Type: This is a fully remote role.

About the Team

The PowerFAIDS team at College Board is a close-knit, dedicated group of professionals with a passion for higher education. The team is committed to providing cutting-edge technology solutions and customer support to facilitate the awarding of over $7 billion in financial aid each year. We pride ourselves on being innovative in our industry by continuously improving our products and services. This team is currently made up of 20+ engineers, a mix of full-time staff and contractors working on delivering solutions for Financial Aid Management.

About the Opportunity

You will play a pivotal role in modernizing PowerFAIDS, the financial aid platform trusted by colleges and universities across the country, by helping rebuild its long-standing Windows desktop application into a modern, accessible web experience. As a Senior Lead Engineer, you will be the technical bridge between our Product Owners, UX designers, and engineering teams, translating complex financial aid business requirements into clean, well-scoped implementations that two delivery teams can build with confidence. You'll write production ASP.NET MVC code yourself, raise the engineering quality bar across both teams, and champion AI-assisted development practices to accelerate the rebuild toward our 2027 milestone of ~100 web views in production. This is a high-visibility, multi-year modernization effort where your influence will shape the codebase, the team, and ultimately the daily work of financial aid administrators nationwide.

In this role, you will:

Design & Implementation (50%)

• Build ASP.NET MVC 5 views end-to-end (ViewModel, Service, Adapter, Controller, and Razor views with DevExpress MVC controls) following the established PowerFAIDS Web architecture that reuses the shared business and data-access layers
• Maintain the highest engineering standards by partnering with Product Owners, UX designers, and architecture stakeholders to translate complex financial aid requirements into clean, well-scoped implementations
• Decompose complex product capabilities into specific, verifiable functional changes that two delivery teams (Nova and Orion) can execute with confidence
• Leverage AI-assisted development (GitHub Copilot today, Claude Code as it becomes available) to accelerate the team toward delivering ~100 web views by end of 2027, while maintaining Agile and CI/CD best practices

Team Operations & Success (25%)

• Participate in and help lead Agile SCRUM ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Grooming, Daily Stand-ups, Demos) across the Nova and Orion delivery teams
• Lead peer code reviews and raise the overall engineering quality bar across both delivery teams
• Assist in the resolution of production issues across PowerFAIDS Web and the shared business / data-access layers
• Adhere to development standards and security policies, partnering with our ISO partner on PowerFAIDS Web security requirements
• Adopt continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices for rapidly implementing, testing, and delivering high-quality code
• Continuously grow as a poly-skilled engineer comfortable across the full ASP.NET MVC stack, including DevExpress UI controls, jQuery, and the shared .NET business layer

Software Solutioning & Design (25%)

• Develop and maintain deep understanding of the financial aid domain and PowerFAIDS' specific business processes (Need Analysis, Dynamic Redetermination, Audit Trail, etc.)
• Work closely with Product Owners, UX designers, and senior architects to evaluate feature requests, provide level-of-effort estimates, and contribute to roadmap and sprint planning
• Conduct and lead design reviews; partner with internal senior architects for architectural validation on the program's harder problems (e.g., reporting modernization, file-system interactions, multi-threading in a web context)

About you, you have:

• 10+ years of production-level software development experience with deep expertise in C# / ASP.NET MVC and the .NET Framework (4.x); experience modernizing legacy Windows/desktop applications to web platforms is a strong plus
• Proven ability to partner with non-technical stakeholders including Product Owners, UX designers, business and analysts to translate complex domain requirements into well-scoped, dev-ready stories
• Strong problem-solving skills with hands-on experience navigating layered architectures (MVC, services, adapters, typed DataSets) and modernizing legacy codebases incrementally
• Experience with DevExpress MVC Extensions, Autofac DI, jQuery, SQL Server, and xUnit/Moq is a strong plus
• Proven ability to substantially lift the skills and expertise of those around you through mentoring, code reviews, and design coaching; familiarity and enthusiasm for AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code) and how to integrate them productively into team workflows
• Ability to travel 3-5 times a year to our NYC or Reston, VA office.
• Authorization to work in the United States.

All roles at College Board require:

• A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work
• Authorization to work in the United States for any employer
• Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and comfort learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively.
• Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal
• A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input.
• A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.
• A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success.

About Our Process

• Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.
• While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.

What We Offer

At College Board, we offer more than just a paycheck-we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We're a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation, grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.

A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation

• The hiring range for this role is $185,000-$200,000
• Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at the College Board.
• We aim to make our best offer upfront, rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data.
• We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live.

You'll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it's like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more.