*Software Architect

Ascend Learning is a national leader in data driven, online educational solutions for learners, educators and employers in high-growth, licensure-driven professions spanning healthcare, fitness and wellness, skilled trades, insurance and financial services. We are passionate about accelerating learning while impacting job readiness, employment success and employee retention with the belief that our work changes lives.

Our culture is intentionally results-driven and selfless with a relentless focus on our customers. We believe in trust, transparency, freedom and responsibility with a commitment to meritocracy, inclusion and diversity of thought. Continual investment in our over 1500 employees is also a core principle realized through ongoing professional development and providing opportunities to grow, develop and lead. Ascend Learning is headquartered in Burlington, MA with additional office locations and remote workers in cities across the U.S.

Ascend Learning is hiring a Software Architect. As a Software Architect on this team, you will represent one or more of Ascend's core competencies: Instructional Content, Assessments, Simulations, and Learning Management Systems. You will design and assist in the implementation of company-wide, uniform architectures across multiple platforms and projects related to those competencies. Successful architectures will apply to all Business Units within Ascend, simplifying the development and maintenance of functionality related to the core competencies. This position will work from one of our Ascend Learning office locations/hybrid: Leawood, Kansas or Burlington, Massachusetts or Gilbert, Arizona or Minneapolis, Minnesota preferred. Remote may be considered.

As a Software Architect you will be responsible for developing and maintaining formal documentation of application and integration architectures. This includes the design and documentation of individual projects based on a micro-services architecture as well as corporate-wide integration of those services.

Project architectures may include any of the following: documentation and presentation of original design, application of approved technology stack and company standards, data modeling, data transfer contracts, security risk mitigation, user interface/experience design, and implementation assistance.

This is an individual contributor role working with a team of software architects. This role is expected to interact with business resources, development leads, QE resources, the Chief Architect, and members of the senior leadership team, as appropriate.

Responsibilities

• Create Software Architecture for multiple projects across multiple platforms with a focus on one or more key competencies
• Work with teams of 20+ individuals on- and off-shore, assisting in the implementation of approved architectures
• Understand the business process; facilitate the discovery of entities, attributes, relationships, and business rules from functional experts and the user community
• Prepare software models to document structures, services, data and information flows for sourcing and accessing data throughout the enterprise
• Develop and enforce development standards and best practices
• Evaluate current environments, conduct research, recommend, and implement innovative designs that can enhance the reliability, security, productivity, and efficiency of systems
• Assist IT functional teams troubleshooting critical business systems
• Ensure that a state of high availability is maintained for top tier applications
• Act as a core team member of the Ascend Learning Architecture Council, supporting the process of validating and directing the architectural progress of the entire company
• Work closely with CISO on company security policies and governance of data across the company
• Mentor members of the implementation teams on development, best practices, standards, etc.
• Work with the development, quality engineering, DBAs, information security, network, operations, and product management teams to design and implement new business initiatives as related to microservices, user interfaces, and analytics.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent work experience
• Minimum 3 years of software architecture experience, design, and implementation with a variety of technologies
• 10+ years in software development
• Experience with microservice architectures
• Experience with stream processing platforms such as Kafka
• Familiarity with code deployments dictated by a formal change management process

Preferred Experience:

• Full-stack web development experience
• Experience with front-end web frameworks (e.g. Angular, React, Blazor)
• Agile development and scrum team experience
• Architecture or development related certifications
• Experience with large-scale, near real-time applications
• Education background in systems is a huge plus
• Experience with distributed systems
• Public cloud experience e.g. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud

Skills & Abilities

• Big picture / High-level architecture: The candidate must be able to think at a high level about the overall systems and goals of the projects
• Proven capability to differentiate between the appropriateness of relational and non-relational solutions, and the ability to work with the team to match data architectures to storage solutions
• Disciplined, dynamic and flexible to manage multiple projects and tasks, work effectively in a rapidly changing environment and meet ongoing and overlapping deadlines
• Work weekends/nights on occasion for on-call incident troubleshooting or administration of regular, off-hour deployments
• Must be able to produce clear documentation to convey architecture, development standards, roadmaps, and potential challenges to both technical and non-technical resources
• Work independently with minimal direction
• Work effectively on geographically diverse teams
• Build trust and works collaboratively with all levels of the Tech and Ops organization, including staff, business stakeholders, and executives
• Possess excellent verbal and written communication skills with all levels of users and management
• Demonstrate strong influencing, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills
• Passion and the ability to learn new things

In addition to the logical responsibilities, a firm understanding of the underlying technologies is required. As a Software Architect you will be working with technologies such as:

• Languages - .Net/C#, Java, PHP, Ruby
• Services - REST, WCF, WebAPI
• Data sources - Sql Server, MySql, Mongo
• Data serialization - JSON, XML, Avro
• Documentation - Sparx Enterprise Architect, UML, Container/Component/Sequence/etc. diagrams
• Corporate Apps - Dynamics GP, CRM, payment processors
• Cloud - Azure, AWS
• Other - Kafka, SSO, LTI, Kubernetes, Git

Ascend Learning, LLC is proud to be an equal opportunity employer (M/F/Vets/Disabled). No agency or search firm submissions will be accepted. Applications for U.S. based positions with Ascend Learning, LLC must be legally authorized to work in the United States and verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

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