Senior Software Development Lead

Univerze LLC

Boston, MA, USA

Published: 6/14/2022

Technology

Full Time

Job Description

Senior Software Development Lead

Company: Univerze LLC
Location: Massachusetts
Position Level: Senior Leadership
Department: Software Engineering & Product Development
Reports To: Chief Executive Officer / Executive Leadership

About Univerze

Univerze is an innovative technology company building the next generation of professional networking, career development, and educational technology solutions. Our mission is to bridge the gap between education and employment by connecting students, educational institutions, and employers through intelligent technology, mentorship, and data-driven career development tools.

We are developing an Employer Mentorship Program, a technology-driven platform designed to help students build meaningful relationships with employers, develop industry-relevant skills, and improve their long-term career outcomes.

Through predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and institutional data integrations, Univerze aims to help educational institutions identify students who may need additional support, recommend personalized career development pathways, and better prepare students for successful employment.

Position Overview

Univerze is seeking an experienced, U.S.-based Senior Software Development Lead to oversee our software engineering team and lead the development of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for our Employer Mentorship Program. We want them to be of U.S. origin for this role.

This individual will play a critical leadership role in translating Univerze's product vision into scalable, secure, and commercially viable technology solutions. The ideal candidate combines strong technical expertise with product management capabilities, strategic thinking, and experience leading distributed development teams.

The Senior Software Development Lead will be responsible for managing engineering priorities, coordinating product releases, developing our predictive analytics infrastructure, overseeing student data integrations, and collaborating with executive leadership to establish a long-term product roadmap.

This is a hands-on leadership position for someone who is comfortable working in a fast-paced startup environment and taking ownership of both technical execution and product development strategy.

Key Responsibilities

1. Software Engineering Leadership

Lead and coordinate Univerze's software development team, including frontend, backend, AI, and quality assurance engineers.
Establish development priorities, engineering milestones, and accountability measures.
Oversee software architecture, code quality, performance, security, and scalability.
Conduct technical reviews and provide mentorship to developers.
Coordinate daily engineering activities and maintain clear communication between U.S.-based leadership and distributed technical teams.
Implement Agile development practices, sprint planning, and project management systems.

2. Employer Mentorship Program MVP Development

Lead the end-to-end technical development and launch of Univerze's Employer Mentorship Program MVP.
Develop a platform connecting students, educational institutions, and employers through structured mentorship experiences.
Build functionality supporting student onboarding, employer participation, mentorship matching, career development tracking, and institutional reporting.
Integrate predictive analytics to identify student success indicators, potential academic or career readiness challenges, and opportunities for intervention.
Develop personalized recommendations that help students strengthen employability, develop professional skills, and pursue higher-quality employment opportunities.
Coordinate the development of institutional dashboards that allow authorized college administrators to monitor student engagement and career readiness.
Define MVP requirements, technical milestones, testing procedures, and launch readiness criteria.

3. Predictive Analytics & Student Data Infrastructure

Oversee the development of systems for securely collecting, integrating, processing, and analyzing student data from participating colleges and universities.
Design integrations with institutional student information systems, career services platforms, and other approved data sources.
Collaborate with educational institutions to establish appropriate data collection and integration procedures.
Develop predictive models that evaluate student engagement, career readiness, mentorship participation, and employment-related outcomes.
Work with engineering and product teams to translate analytical insights into actionable student success recommendations.
Establish data quality standards, validation procedures, and performance metrics.
Ensure appropriate student consent, access controls, data minimization, and compliance with applicable privacy requirements, including FERPA where relevant.
Evaluate predictive models for accuracy, bias, fairness, and explainability, ensuring that analytics support human decision-making rather than automatically restricting student opportunities.

4. Product Roadmapping & Strategic Planning

Collaborate with executive leadership to establish Univerze's short-term and long-term technology roadmap.
Translate business objectives, institutional feedback, and market research into technical requirements and development priorities.
Organize feature development schedules, product improvements, and software release timelines.
Evaluate new technologies, AI capabilities, and third-party integrations that could improve the platform.
Prioritize engineering resources based on product impact, customer needs, development complexity, and company objectives.
Identify technical dependencies, potential development bottlenecks, and opportunities to accelerate delivery.

5. Feature Updates, Testing & Product Launches

Manage the planning, coordination, testing, and deployment of new product features.
Establish structured release cycles, including staging, quality assurance, user acceptance testing, and production deployment.
Coordinate bug fixes, technical improvements, and platform updates.
Work with executive leadership to communicate upcoming launches, development milestones, and product changes.
Ensure successful integration of new features across Univerze's existing technology ecosystem.
Monitor product performance following launches and implement improvements based on user feedback and technical data.

6. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Institutional Partnerships

Work closely with Univerze's executive leadership, product researchers, business strategy team, and institutional partners.
Translate feedback from students, colleges, and employers into actionable product enhancements.
Participate in technical discussions with prospective university partners regarding data integrations, security, and platform capabilities.
Support product demonstrations, pilot programs, and institutional onboarding.
Provide regular engineering progress reports, development forecasts, and technical recommendations to company leadership.

Required Qualifications

15+ years of professional software development experience, including significant technical leadership responsibilities.
Demonstrated experience managing software engineers and leading complex software development projects.
Strong understanding of full-stack development, APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure, and scalable application architecture.
Experience developing and launching MVPs, SaaS platforms, or enterprise software solutions.
Familiarity with AI, machine learning, predictive analytics, or data-driven applications.
Experience with Agile methodologies, sprint planning, and software release management.
Strong project management, organizational, and technical problem-solving abilities.
Experience translating business requirements into technical specifications and product roadmaps.
Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate with executive leadership and distributed teams.
Must be based in the United States.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience developing education technology (EdTech), career development, or workforce technology platforms.
Familiarity with higher education student information systems and institutional data integrations.
Knowledge of FERPA, student data privacy, and secure data governance practices.
Experience developing predictive analytics models for student success, retention, or employment outcomes.
Experience building AI-powered recommendation engines or personalized learning and career development systems.
Previous experience in an early-stage startup or venture-backed technology company.
Experience coordinating offshore or internationally distributed engineering teams.

Initial 90-Day Objectives

First 30 Days — Technical Assessment & Planning

Review Univerze's existing codebase, development infrastructure, engineering workflows, and product requirements. Establish an actionable MVP development roadmap, assign engineering responsibilities, and identify the technical requirements for student data integration and predictive analytics.

Days 31–60 — MVP Development & Integration

Lead the development of core Employer Mentorship Program functionality, including student and employer workflows, institutional data infrastructure, mentorship management tools, and initial analytics capabilities. Implement development milestones, quality assurance processes, and release schedules.

Days 61–90 — Testing, Validation & Pilot Readiness

Coordinate internal testing, validate predictive analytics functionality, address critical technical issues, and prepare the MVP for pilot deployment with participating educational institutions. Establish performance metrics and a prioritized roadmap for subsequent feature releases.

Success Metrics

Performance in this role will be evaluated through:

Achievement of MVP development milestones and launch readiness targets.
Engineering team productivity, accountability, and delivery consistency.
Quality, reliability, security, and scalability of the platform.
Successful implementation of authorized student data integrations.
Accuracy, reliability, and fairness of predictive analytics functionality.
Timely execution of feature releases and product improvements.
Responsiveness to institutional feedback and evolving product requirements.
Alignment between technical development priorities and Univerze's commercial objectives.

Why Join Univerze?

This opportunity offers the chance to play a foundational leadership role in building technology that could transform how students prepare for their careers and how colleges measure and support student success.

As Senior Software Development Lead, you will have significant ownership over Univerze's engineering direction, product architecture, and development execution while working directly with executive leadership to bring an innovative AI-powered education and employment platform to market.

Our goal is to build more than a networking platform. We aim to create an intelligent career development ecosystem that helps students turn education, mentorship, and professional relationships into measurable career opportunities.

\nCompany Description

At Univerze, we’re building technology designed to change how the next generation connects, develops professionally, and discovers career opportunities. Joining Univerze means becoming part of an ambitious startup where your ideas, creativity, and contributions can directly influence what we build and how we grow