Principal Engineer – Bluebook Platform

The College Board

Principal Engineer guiding technical strategy and architectural decisions for College Board’s cloud-native assessment platforms. Leading cross-functional teams to solve complex technical challenges.

Posted 5/30/2026full-time🇺🇸 United StatesSeniorLead💰 $220,000 - $230,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudDistributed SystemsJavaScriptNode.jsPythonReactTypeScript

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Drive technical direction across multiple teams and systems, ensuring decisions support both immediate delivery needs and long-term platform goals.
Translate ambiguous business needs, emerging opportunities, and complex technical challenges into actionable technical strategies and execution plans.
Help teams evaluate tradeoffs, identify risks, and make informed architectural decisions in complex and evolving problem spaces.
Partner with Engineering Managers, Architects, and senior+ engineers to align technical investments, reduce duplication, and improve platform cohesion.
Influence the evolution of shared services, platform capabilities, engineering standards, and development practices across the organization.
Lead technical discovery, prototyping, and experimentation efforts that help shape future product and platform direction while reducing implementation risk.
Promote thoughtful adoption of emerging technologies, including AI-assisted engineering and agentic development practices, while balancing innovation with reliability, maintainability, and operational excellence.
Establish technical patterns, decision frameworks, and architectural guardrails that enable teams to move faster while maintaining quality and consistency.
Serve as a trusted technical advisor across teams, helping stakeholders align around technical approaches, priorities, and tradeoffs.
Partner with Product, Design, Data, and Engineering leaders to shape roadmaps, evaluate opportunities, and solve high-impact organizational challenges.
Build consensus across technical and non-technical stakeholders when requirements, priorities, or technical approaches are not initially aligned.
Foster alignment across teams working on interconnected systems, ensuring local decisions support broader platform goals and organizational outcomes.
Mentor senior engineers, lead engineers, and emerging technical leaders through coaching, design reviews, and technical guidance.
Facilitate knowledge sharing and create clarity around engineering standards, architectural decisions, and platform strategy.
Support hiring, interviewing, and development of engineering talent across the organization.
Contribute to a culture of experimentation, continuous improvement, engineering excellence, and shared ownership.

Requirements

What you’ll need

10+ years of experience building and operating cloud-native software systems, including significant experience working across multiple teams, products, or domains.
Demonstrated success influencing technical direction beyond a single team through collaboration, persuasion, and strong technical judgment.
Deep experience with JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, React, Node.js, AWS, and serverless architectures, along with curiosity about emerging technologies and AI-assisted development.
Experience leading complex architectural discussions and technical strategy across cloud-native platforms, distributed systems, and evolving organizational priorities.
Ability to communicate effectively with engineers, product leaders, and non-technical stakeholders, translating complex concepts into actionable decisions.
A systems-thinking mindset with the ability to balance platform health, business outcomes, engineering velocity, and long-term platform reuse.
Experience driving alignment across teams without relying on direct authority.
A collaborative leadership style that prioritizes organizational success over ownership of any individual system.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Annual bonuses and opportunities for merit-based raises and promotions
A mission-driven workplace where your impact matters
A team that invests in your development and success

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

JavaScriptTypeScriptPythonReactNode.jsAWSserverless architecturecloud-native software systemsdistributed systemstechnical strategy

Soft Skills

collaborationpersuasiontechnical judgmentcommunicationsystems thinkingleadershipmentoringcoachingknowledge sharingconsensus building