Manager, Software 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:

Job Description

The Software Engineering Manager will provide technical leadership, vision, direction, and mentoring for the software engineering team. This individual will manage a team of personnel who design, develop, and support applications to meet business requirements. The Software Engineering Manager will deliver product and feature roadmaps and provide overall leadership and day to day management for a team of software development professionals. Additionally, they will provide resource planning and project scheduling using Agile/Scrum software development methodologies.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Meets business needs by managing the activities of developers consistently delivering quality solutions on-time, within budget, and scope.
• Work with internal customers to gather business processes and project requirements.
• Actively drives the development life cycle from requirements analysis, feasibility estimates, design, code, documentation, testing, implementation, and support.
• Developing project plans, resource planning, scheduling, and managing development timelines.
• Building and managing multi-disciplined software teams and overseeing the development processes using industry best practices.
• Responsible for design reviews, code reviews, and mentoring the software development team.
• Support a change management process to manage software releases, application patching and changes to production configurations.
• Manage multiple tasks and responsibilities in high-pressure environments; excelling at pinpointing and resolving problems in early project stages to avoid cost/time expenses.
• Oversight and management of department expenses and budget planning.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

Technical Credibility:

• Has previously operated as a senior-level software engineer or equivalent technical leader and can credibly evaluate architecture, engineering practices, and technical tradeoffs.Strong people and management skills to interact with staff, colleagues, cross-functional teams and third parties.

Sound Judgement/Escalation:

• Demonstrates sound judgment by making data-informed decisions, balancing risk appropriately, and escalating issues to the right stakeholders at the right time with clear mitigation strategies.

Trust & Cross Functional Communication

• Builds trust through concise, accurate communication, active listening, transparency, and consistent follow-through on commitments

Organizational Impact:

• Manages a team that focuses on executing the operational plans for the job area with measurable contribution to the achievement of results of the department, function, or office.
• Assigns and distributes work.
• Compiles data to prepare budgets.
• Problem Solving and Decision Making:
• Responsible for making moderate improvements of processes or systems to enhance performance of the job area.
• Assignments received and problems faced are broad and undefined, and occasionally require use of analytical concepts, investigation, and knowledge from prior experience.

Communication and Influence:

• Communicates within job area and occasionally with external groups. External facing professionals (i.e. Admissions) communicate more regularly with external groups on routine matters.
• Ensures compliance with university policies and procedures within job area and may influence others outside of job area to justify and gain cooperation for policies, practices, and procedures.

Leadership and Talent Management:

• Manages/Supervises a team of professionals. Manages the work of assigned employees and/or supervisors who generally exercise some latitude and independence in their assignments. Ensures proper training of team members, and participates in hiring, firing, and promotion decisions. Conducts performance reviews and may recommend salary reviews.
• May complete assignments that are technical in manner in addition to supervising others.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field or equivalent.
• 5+ years of Enterprise level Java Application development with experience both as a hands-on programmer and software development manager.
• Requires broad management knowledge to lead the department. Generally, has advanced level knowledge and skills within a specific technical or professional discipline with understanding of the impact of work on other areas of the University.
• Must have a commitment to quality through the ability to translate complex technical requirements into functional software using best practices.
• Expert in Agile methods including SCRUM and TDD.
• Experience in application architecture and making rational build / buy / interface decisions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to work equally well in self-managed and team-based Agile/Scrum projects.
• Deep technical knowledge of Java based web applications using web services (REST/SOAP/SOA/XML/HTML).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master of Science Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or related field.
• Other Technical Experience That Would be a Plus
• Oracle or other database interface experience
• NetBeans
• Subversion
• Jira. IDM / OSSO
• Student Information Systems. CRM systems
• Manager Software Engineering
• Document Management systems
• Application Integration with legacy systems

This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.

Position & Application Details

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 [email protected].

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