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CommonLit

Platform Engineer

CommonLit
🇺🇸Remote2mo ago
K-12EngineeringDevopsCloud ComputingBackend DevelopmentAwsInfrastructure Engineering
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Role Snapshot

Platform Engineer role at CommonLit nonprofit focused on amplifying engineering team impact through infrastructure, tooling, and security improvements. Work on long-term infrastructure optimization and responsive support enabling the team to ship high-quality software reliably.

Key Responsibilities: Monitor and operate AWS infrastructure, develop and improve developer tooling, collaborate with engineers to identify and remove pain points, assist Data Science team with data pipelines, and lead security improvements at infrastructure level. Also support cost optimization and compliance monitoring.
Skills & Tools: Strong AWS expertise (VPC, IAM, S3, Secrets Manager, CloudFormation), experience operating and troubleshooting Postgres databases, familiarity with Ruby on Rails applications, and ability to make infrastructure and tooling accessible and understandable to others.
Qualifications: 3+ years experience operating production applications at meaningful scale in AWS infrastructure and software development experience including time on Ruby on Rails applications.
Location: Remote
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Job Description

CommonLit is a nonprofit education technology organization dedicated to ensuring that all students, especially students in Title I schools, graduate with the reading, writing, communication, and problem-solving skills they need to be successful in college and beyond. We envision a world where all students get the opportunity to have a world class education. We operate an online reading program for grades 3-12, www.CommonLit.org, that is used by teachers in over 90,000 American schools.

The Opportunity

Our small (ten-member) engineering team works in a collaborative, high-trust environment where we ship high-quality software that delivers CommonLit's curriculum, helping students grow to become lifelong readers. As a Platform Engineer, you'll amplify our team's impact through work on our infrastructure, tooling, and security.

Your work will include long-term projects to improve and optimize our infrastructure as well as responsive work to fix infrastructure and tool issues that block application engineers. You'll improve our tools, making it easier to ship reliable software more quickly. You will work closely with the CTO, who has been involved in infrastructure and tooling for the team.

We run a Ruby on Rails monolith with a few small extracted services. We deploy our applications on AWS EKS through Northflank PaaS. We use Postgres and Redshift as our data stores. Our CI/CD pipelines run on AWS with Buildkite. Other significant technologies/services in our tech stack include Sidekiq, Redis, Redshift, and Cloudflare. CommonLit is SOC2 compliant and keeping our infrastructure and student data secure is an important priority.

Our team is a group of life-long learners. We value sharing ideas, collaboration, and building performant, reliable software that teachers can rely on in the high-stress classroom environment.

Apply by: Monday, March 23 at 5 pm ET

The Interview Process

Interviewing is a demand on your time. Here's what you can expect from our interview process:

  • A call with our talent team to talk about your experience and learn about CommonLit
  • A 45-60 minute technical interview over Zoom with an engineer
  • A 2-3 hour final interview that will include pairing on problems with CommonLit team members and meeting our engineers and product managers

Location & Hours

Remote, US - Due to contractual restrictions on data and systems access, this role can only be performed from within the United States. This job includes a background check and ongoing verification of your US residency.

Regardless of the time zone in which they reside, the Platform Engineer must be available to work 11 am-5 pm EST with work hours surrounding.

Roles and Responsibilities:

  • Monitor and operate CommonLit’s AWS infrastructure
  • Work with the CTO to maintain and optimize CommonLit's infrastructure and application environment
  • Develop and improve CommonLit's developer tooling to enable engineers to do their best work
  • Collaborate with engineers to find pain points and remove them. Unblock engineers when tooling issues arise
  • Assist the Data Science team with data pipelines and ETL processes to improve reliability and efficiency
  • Lead efforts to improve security at the infrastructure level
  • Monitor compliance-related items associated with infrastructure
  • Assist the CTO with cost-optimization to maximize CommonLit's non-personnel tech spend

    • Qualifications:

  • Candidates must have 3+ years experience operating production applications at some meaningful level of scale in AWS infrastructure
  • Experience in software development, including some time on a Ruby on Rails application. You will need to be able to understand behavior at the interface point of our applications and our infrastructure
  • Strong knowledge of core AWS services: VPC, IAM, S3, Secrets Manager, CloudFormation
  • Experience operating and troubleshooting Postgres databases
  • A desire to make things organized and understandable by others. Part of this role is making infrastructure and tooling more accessible to other engineers
  • Excellent problem-solving skills
  • Attention to detail and organizational inclination
  • Excellent time-management skills
  • Strong interpersonal and problem-solving skills
  • Strong communication and collaboration skills

    • Physical & Additional Requirements:

  • This role involves prolonged periods in a stationary position at a desk and working on a computer

    • Salary and Benefits
    Salary: $95,000 - $150,000, commensurate with experience
    At CommonLit, we are committed to fostering a supportive and inclusive company culture that values work-life balance and adapts to life’s changes. We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support our employees’ health, well-being, and financial security:
    -Health, dental, and vision insurance
    -HSA and FSA Plans, including Medical FSA, Limited FSA, and Dependent Care FSA options
    -Company-sponsored basic life insurance, with additional options for supplemental life insurance
    -Legal insurance
    -401(k) retirement plan with a 4% safe harbor employer match
    -Access to exclusive discounts, including pet insurance, hotel booking discounts, and more
    -Remote work support, including a home office set-up stipend
    Generous time off, including:
    -16 paid holidays annually
    -Paid time off accruals and sick leave
    -Paid family leave, including caregiver leave, medical leave, and 12 weeks of paid parental leave
    -2 floating holidays
    -Volunteer and school visitation leave
    -Jury duty leave
    -Bereavement and compassionate leave
    -Blood, bone marrow, and organ donation leave
    -Flexible work options
    -Low-stress weeks around Thanksgiving and in late December
    As a remote-first organization, CommonLit has team members in nearly 30 states and Washington, D.C. We strive to create a collaborative and engaging workplace through various connection opportunities:
    -Monthly remote activities, such as dumpling-making, yoga, and virtual escape rooms
    -Monthly "CoffeeLit" sessions for connecting with colleagues
    -Learning and development opportunities for teams and individuals
    Apply by: Monday, March 23 at 5 pm ET