Role Description
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.
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Design & Implementation (50%)
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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.
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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.
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Decompose complex product capabilities into specific, verifiable functional changes that two delivery teams (Nova and Orion) can execute with confidence.
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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.
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Team Operations & Success (25%)
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Participate in and help lead Agile SCRUM ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Grooming, Daily Stand-ups, Demos) across the Nova and Orion delivery teams.
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Lead peer code reviews and raise the overall engineering quality bar across both delivery teams.
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Assist in the resolution of production issues across PowerFAIDS Web and the shared business/data-access layers.
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Adhere to development standards and security policies, partnering with our ISO partner on PowerFAIDS Web security requirements.
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Adopt continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices for rapidly implementing, testing, and delivering high-quality code.
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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.
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Software Solutioning & Design (25%)
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Develop and maintain deep understanding of the financial aid domain and PowerFAIDS’ specific business processes (Need Analysis, Dynamic Redetermination, Audit Trail, etc.).
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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.
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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).
Qualifications
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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.
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Proven ability to partner with non-technical stakeholders including Product Owners, UX designers, business analysts to translate complex domain requirements into well-scoped, dev-ready stories.
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Strong problem-solving skills with hands-on experience navigating layered architectures (MVC, services, adapters, typed DataSets) and modernizing legacy codebases incrementally.
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Experience with DevExpress MVC Extensions, Autofac DI, jQuery, SQL Server, and xUnit/Moq is a strong plus.
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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.
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Ability to travel 3-5 times a year to our NYC or Reston, VA office.
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Authorization to work in the United States.
Requirements
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A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work.
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Authorization to work in the United States for any employer.
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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.
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Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal.
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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.
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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.
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A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success.
Benefits
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A meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive.
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Fair and competitive compensation, grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.
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The hiring range for this role is $185,000–$200,000.
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Open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it’s like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process.