Senior Software Developer, Backend - Data Platform

at Coursera

Canada

About Coursera

Coursera was founded in 2012 by Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller to make world-class learning accessible to everyone, everywhere. Today, over 190 million learners and 375+ university and industry partners use our platform to gain skills in fields like AI, data science, technology, and business. As a Delaware public benefit corporation and Certified B Corp, we’re driven by the belief that learning can transform lives through learning.

Why Join Us

At Coursera, we’re looking for inventors, innovators, and lifelong learners ready to shape the future of education. You’ll help build global programs and tools that power online learning for millions turning bold ideas into real impact. People who thrive here are customer-first builders who move fast, simplify ruthlessly, and iterate relentlessly on the metrics that matter.

We’re a globally distributed team and let you choose the best way you work, whether it's from home, a Coursera hub, or a co-working space near you. Our virtual hiring and onboarding make it easy to join us and start making an impact from anywhere. If you’re ready to make a global impact, scale unique products exclusive to Coursera, and expand your career horizons, apply below.

Job Overview:

As a Senior Software Developer on the Data Platform team, you will join the team’s mission to empower data workers at Coursera and maximize their productivity by providing robust tools, innovative platforms, and a steadfast analytics infrastructure. The team owns a wide range of data-empowering systems, including eventing services, experimentation systems, and offline data lake systems. This is an exciting time to join the team as we are actively developing our new data lake systems, unifying our data development tool stack, and enhancing our eventing as well as experimentation platforms to enable the company’s data driven culture.

You will be a technical leader, scaling and developing our data infrastructure as well as tools that pave the path for data development in our offline data systems. You will tackle complex technical challenges at scale that power millions of learners and drive substantial technical impact across multiple teams within the organization. You will have the opportunity to influence the future roadmap, growth, and success of Coursera's data-driven culture. You will collaborate closely with data engineers, data scientists, machine learning, and product engineers.

Responsibilities:

Design and implement scalable & robust Data Platforms, APIs, and Systems
Proactively identify and implement high-leverage opportunities to improve system architecture, scalability, and performance
Develop and deploy your high-quality code (in Java, Scala, Python, or similar languages) following industry best practices and track key service level indicators (SLIs)
Debug and fix production issues, lead blameless retrospectives, and participate in the on-call rotation to ensure adherence to the service level agreements (SLAs)
Collaborate and mentor team members, foster a collaborative and inclusive environment, and proactively pinpoint and advance engineering improvements and practices
Own large feature areas, identify gaps in system ownership, and drive initiatives to simplify and consolidate system components.

Basic Qualifications:

4+ years of experience working in a relevant backend software engineering role, with 3+ years focused on data infrastructure or data systems.
Experience with implementing APIs and writing automated tests, and proficiency in at least one backend programming language (e.g., Java, Python)
Demonstrated history working with cloud data services (e.g., AWS, GCP), streaming technologies, and handling large data sets
Proven experience in defining technical roadmaps for a data system or a software system
Fervent belief in engineering quality and building technical leverage for others
Comfortable working in a fast-moving team environment (we deploy many times a day!)
Data-driven and strongly motivated by success and learnings through experiments and metrics analysis

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience working with data systems or data lakes. Experience working with eventing services. Experience collaborating with data science and data engineering functions.
Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, and navigate through ambiguity and uncertainty with confidence.
Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality products or services.
Proven track record of delivering results in a resource-constrained environment with limited guidance and supervision.

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Coursera is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to building a welcoming and inclusive workplace. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request at accommodations@coursera.org. Learn more in our CCPA Applicant Notice and GDPR Recruitment Notice.