Fast Facts
Finalsite is seeking a Tech Lead (Ruby on Rails) to drive architectural excellence and operational stability for their payment systems, responsible for mentoring engineers and optimizing CI/CD processes.
Responsibilities: Lead the design and implementation of architectural enhancements, manage AWS infrastructure, optimize CI/CD pipelines, and serve as the primary SME for payment gateways.
Skills: Expertise in Ruby on Rails, full-stack proficiency in React, AWS management with Terraform, and experience with payment gateways like Stripe.
Qualifications: Preferred experience in migrating legacy systems, understanding SRE practices, and active participation in the Open Source community.
Location: 100% Remote - Anywhere within the US; must be a permanent resident of the United States.
Compensation: Not provided by employer. Typical compensation ranges for this position are between $130,000 - $180,000.
Finalsite is the first community relationship management platform for K-12 schools, transforming how schools attract students, engage families, build community — and thrive. More than 7,000 schools and districts worldwide trust Finalsite’s integrated platform for their websites, communications, mobile apps, enrollment, and marketing services. Finalsite is headquartered in Glastonbury, CT, USA with employees who work remotely in nearly every state in the U.S. as well as Europe, South America, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.finalsite.com.
The Opportunity
At Finalsite, we empower educators to reach and engage their communities through transformative digital experiences. As our Tech Lead, you won't just be writing code; you will be the architectural backbone of a platform that processes over $1.6B in gross payment volume. By bridging the gap between high-level strategy and hands-on execution, you ensure that schools worldwide can depend on a secure, high-performance financial ecosystem.
The Mission
The mission of the Tech Lead is to drive the technical excellence, operational stability, and architectural integrity of our Ruby on Rails and React-based payment systems. You will own the end-to-end lifecycle of our applications, from the efficiency of our CI/CD pipelines to the resilience of our AWS infrastructure. Your goal is to serve as a high-impact individual contributor while elevating the entire team through mentorship and the implementation of engineering best practices.
12-Month Outcomes
- Architecture Evolution: Successfully lead the design and implementation of at least two major architectural enhancements that improve system scalability or decrease technical debt within the payment ecosystem.
- Operational Excellence: Reduce deployment friction and lead-time by optimizing our Jenkins-based CI/CD system and Terraform configurations.
- Performance Optimization: Improve application response times and database efficiency (MySQL/MongoDB), ensuring the platform remains performant during peak high-volume cycles.
- Technical Mentorship: Establish a "culture of quality" by standardizing code review processes and helping at least two mid-to-senior engineers level up their architectural thinking.
- Security & Compliance: Partner with the Security team to ensure 100% compliance with fintech standards, specifically focusing on our Stripe integration and data handling.
Key Responsibilities
- Architect & Build: Spend approximately 60% of your time as a "player-coach," delivering high-quality Ruby on Rails and React code while overseeing overall system design.
- DevOps & SRE Ownership: Lead the team’s "you build it, you run it" philosophy by managing AWS infrastructure via Terraform and participating in a rotating on-call schedule.
- SME for Payments: Serve as the primary Subject Matter Expert for our Stripe integration, ensuring seamless processing for $1.6B+ in transactions.
- CI/CD Leadership: Own and optimize the automated deployment pipeline (Jenkins/Git), ensuring code moves from development to production safely and frequently.
- Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate closely with Product Managers and Security Leads to translate business requirements into robust technical specifications.
- Standard Setting: Define and enforce engineering standards for testing, documentation, and performance monitoring across the stack.
Required Skills
- Ruby on Rails Mastery: Deep expertise in building, scaling, and maintaining complex Rails applications.
- Full-Stack Fluency: Strong proficiency in React for front-end development and a solid understanding of how it interfaces with Rails APIs.
- Cloud Infrastructure: Proven experience managing AWS environments using "Infrastructure as Code" (Terraform).
- Data Persistence: Expertise in both relational (MySQL) and non-relational (MongoDB) database design, optimization, and scaling.
- Fintech Knowledge: Practical experience with payment gateways (specifically Stripe) and handling large-scale financial data.
- Technical Leadership: Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, perform rigorous code reviews, and lead technical decision-making without a "command and control" approach.
Leveraging GenAI in This Role
We encourage our leads to work smarter. In this role, you can leverage GenAI tools to:
- Accelerate Documentation: Rapidly generate baseline technical documentation or READMEs for new architectural patterns.
- Optimize Code Reviews: Use AI-driven analysis to catch edge cases in complex Ruby logic or identify potential security vulnerabilities in Stripe integrations.
- Terraform Scripting: Use LLMs to generate boilerplate Terraform modules or troubleshoot complex Jenkins pipeline configurations.
- Unit Test Generation: Speed up the creation of comprehensive test suites for legacy codebases.
Nice to Have Skills
- Experience migrating legacy monolithic architectures to modular or microservices-based structures.
- Background in SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) practices, specifically around SLO/SLI definition.
- Active participation in the Open Source community or a history of technical blogging/speaking.
Location
100% Remote - Anywhere within the US
RESIDENCY REQUIREMENT
Finalsite offers 100% fully remote employment opportunities, however, these opportunities are limited to permanent residents of the United States. Current residency, as well as continued residency, within the United States is required to obtain (and retain) employment with Finalsite.
DISCLOSURES
Finalsite is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact Finalsite's People Operations Team. Finalsite is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Finalsite will ensure that persons with disabilities or special needs are provided a reasonable accommodation. Ensure your Finalsite job offer is legitimate and don't fall victim to fraud. Ask your recruiter for a phone call or other type of verbal communication and ensure all email correspondence is from a finalsite.com email address. For added security, where possible, apply through our company website at finalsite.com/jobs.
