Senior 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:
Grade: Technical 410Pay Range: $143,700.00 - $222,700.00Job Description
The Senior Software Engineer is responsible for the research, design, development, analysis, testing, and implementation of software operating or application systems. They communicate project information to client, project manager, or other design personnel working on projects. They maintain good working relationships with clients and staff. They write and maintains complete documentation. They support team members and ensures established goals and deadlines are met. They keep management informed of status and significant problems.This is an on-site position located at our headquarters, 4001 South 700 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84107.
About the Company
At Western Governors University, our ambition is to be the world’s most student-centric university; everything we do begins and ends with our students, our alumni, and their families. The success and wellbeing of individuals is at our core. It’s why we exist. It’s why we are committed to changing higher education. This is what it looks like to create pathways of opportunity for everyone: one by one. Our innovative approach and passionate team drive us to deliver exceptional solutions in education. With a commitment to excellence and a culture of collaboration, we strive to be leaders in education technology.
About the Team and Project
This engineering team is focused on open-source software, particularly the Open edX software. Open edX is a learning management system, content management system, course authoring tool, and more which provides a platform to over 55 million learners across the world. Our team aims to improve the performance, and accessibility to this platform and its peripheral functions. We are looking for highly skilled engineers who are willing to contribute advanced innovation to online education.
Focus:
- End-to-end (E2E) test framework implementation with Playwright
- Accessibility and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliance
- AI (artificial intelligence) integrations and automation for engineering teams
About the Company
At Western Governors University, our ambition is to be the world’s most student-centric university; everything we do begins and ends with our students, our alumni, and their families. The success and wellbeing of individuals is at our core. It’s why we exist. It’s why we are committed to changing higher education. This is what it looks like to create pathways of opportunity for everyone: one by one. Our innovative approach and passionate team drive us to deliver exceptional solutions in education. With a commitment to excellence and a culture of collaboration, we strive to be leaders in education technology.
About the Team and Project
This engineering team is focused on open-source software, particularly the Open edX software. Open edX is a learning management system, content management system, course authoring tool, and more which provides a platform to over 55 million learners across the world. Our team aims to improve the performance, and accessibility to this platform and its peripheral functions. We are looking for highly skilled engineers who are willing to contribute advanced innovation to online education. Automated testing and accessibility are how we ship confidently to a platform of this size, and we are actively building AI tooling into the way the team develops software.
Core Responsibilities
- Design, build, and own the end-to-end (E2E) test framework in Playwright across our React and Django repositories, and drive its adoption in our continuous integration (CI) pipelines.
- Treat accessibility as an engineering discipline: audit against WCAG 2.2 Level AA, remediate defects in product code, and build automated accessibility checks into the pipeline so regressions are caught before release.
- Build AI tooling into how the team develops software - review agents, test generation, and automations that remove repetitive work - and evaluate honestly where those tools help and where they do not.
- Make the test suites fast and trustworthy enough that other engineers want to run them, and teach the practices behind them.
- Write code that is understandable and extensible for other organizations and engineers to implement and reuse.
- Provide documentation that breaks down complex architecture or software concepts.
- Present ideas and concepts with clear communication in a way that helps others learn.
- Demonstrate both leadership and performance principles in alignment with our company mission.
- Engage respectfully to create an environment inclusive for diverse individuals and perspectives.
- Adaptability to turn obstacles into opportunities, embracing unforeseen circumstances or changing priorities.
Technical Qualifications
Experience
- 7+ years of professional software engineering experience building and testing enterprise-grade web applications.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field (Master’s preferred).
- Deep, hands-on experience designing and maintaining end-to-end test automation frameworks in Playwright - fixtures, page objects, parallel execution, test data management, and the ongoing work of keeping a suite fast and free of flaky tests. Comparable depth in Cypress or Selenium with a willingness to work in Playwright will be considered.
- Demonstrated experience delivering interfaces that meet WCAG 2.1 / 2.2 Level AA: semantic HTML, ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), keyboard navigation, focus management, and color and contrast requirements.
- Practical experience with both automated accessibility tooling (axe-core, Lighthouse, pa11y, or similar) and manual verification with screen readers such as NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver - including a clear understanding of what automated checks cannot catch.
- Practical experience applying AI to engineering workflows: coding agents and assistants, custom automations, or model-backed integrations against internal systems, with sound judgment about where they add value and where they add risk.
- Working proficiency in TypeScript / React and/or Python / Django - enough to fix the defects you find, not only report them.
- Experience running and maintaining test suites in CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions or similar), including containerized test environments with Docker and AWS.
Expertise
- Proficiency in Git/GitHub, pipenv, and related development tools.
- Experience integrating third-party platforms and building custom API (application programming interface) endpoints.
- Familiarity with authentication protocols such as OAuth 2.0 and SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language), and with relational databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL.
- Exposure to visual regression, contract, or performance testing is a plus.
- Familiarity with accessibility obligations in higher education - Section 508, VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template), or equivalent - is a plus.
- Familiarity with open-source platforms like Open edX is a plus.
Basic Qualifications
- Strong communication skills and enthusiasm for engaging with a global community through pull requests, events, forums participation, and working groups.
- Produces clear, easy-to-follow documentation - in pull request descriptions, GitHub issues, official documentation, etc.
- Effectively solves business problems, with minimal oversight, from technical discovery to community consensus to development to merging - and ultimately, community adoption.
- Understands and makes well-reasoned design decisions, considering tradeoffs and priorities. Considers community need and solicits community input as part of the decision-making process.
- Can reflect on community interactions and adjust behavior in order to create a welcoming and inclusive environment.
- Provides mentorship within team and community.
- Advocates for testing and accessibility standards upstream - contributing tests, fixes, and improvements back to the community rather than maintaining them privately.
Job Description Disclaimer: This position description provides the major duties/responsibilities, requirements and working conditions for the position. It is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current position, however management reserves the right to revise or change as necessary to meet organizational needs. Other responsibilities may be assigned when circumstances require.
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
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 [email protected].
Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.