Senior Software Engineer

The College Board’s Cloud and Platform Security Engineering (CPSE) team designs, builds, and secures the cloud foundation that powers our most critical applications and services. We partner closely with product engineering, platform, risk, compliance, and application teams to design, automate, and operationalize scalable security controls, building reusable tooling and guardrails that make secure application deployments the default across AWS environments. Rather than operating as a reactive review function, we implement preventive and detective controls that reduce systemic risk while enabling teams to move quickly. Our work spans multi-account cloud architecture, identity and access management, network segmentation, automation, detection engineering, and compliance alignment. We focus on scalable, repeatable solutions that strengthen security posture across the enterprise.

About the Opportunity

As a Senior Full Stack Engineer within CPSE, you will collaborate closely with other engineers on the team using ensemble or mob programming methodologies to build and operate product security solutions in support of College Board’s mission. You will use a variety of technologies to build, operate, and maintain software and automation solutions in an ever-growing cloud environment. The team’s solutions will support the secure delivery of all College Board digital products, and ensure security of College Board infrastructure.

You will work across cloud environments to expand automated guardrails, improve external exposure management, and reduce high-risk misconfigurations through enforceable, enterprise-wide controls. This role emphasizes secure-by-default architecture, infrastructure automation, and measurable risk reduction, ensuring security controls are consistently applied as the organization scales.

In partnership with Cloud Engineering, Product Security, and Cyber Operations, you will enhance vulnerability management workflows, increase automation across intake and response processes, and strengthen detection and triage capabilities. You will help drive improved remediation velocity, clearer security posture visibility, and more efficient security operations through engineering-led solutions.

You will also contribute to the resilience and reliability of critical security platforms, ensuring continuity of monitoring and posture management capabilities while supporting modernization efforts. Success in this role means delivering durable, scalable security outcomes: stronger preventive coverage, reduced exposure windows, improved operational efficiency, and measurable improvements in enterprise security posture.

In this role, you will:

Strengthen Cloud Guardrails and Preventive Controls (50%)

• Design, implement, and operationalize automated preventive and detective guardrails across enterprise cloud environments.
• Build and enforce enterprise-wide controls that prevent or automatically remediate high-risk misconfigurations.
• Improve protection coverage for internet-facing systems by validating asset inventories and expanding enforcement mechanisms.
• Continuously evaluate control effectiveness through telemetry, compliance validation, and risk trend analysis.
• Partner with cloud platform teams to embed secure-by-default infrastructure patterns into reusable modules and deployment workflows.

Advance Vulnerability Management (UVM) and Security Automation (30%)

• Enhance and operationalize Unified Vulnerability Management (UVM) workflows to improve prioritization, remediation velocity, and cross-team accountability.
• Increase automation across vulnerability intake, enrichment, ticketing, and response workflows to reduce manual triage burden.
• Design and deliver engineering solutions that improve detection quality and response speed in collaboration with Cyber Operations.
• Translate security requirements into scalable technical implementations using infrastructure-as-code and automation frameworks.
• Measure and report on workflow efficiency and risk reduction outcomes using operational metrics.

Improve Security Posture Visibility and CSPM Continuity (20%)

• Design and implement standardized, automated security checks in Backstage across prioritized domains (e.g., code security, CSPM, vulnerability management).
• Establish a quantifiable product security maturity model backed by Backstage telemetry and Security Scorecard outputs.
• Partner with Product Security to ensure continuity of CSPM coverage and dependent tool integrations (e.g., Tines, WAF dashboard) throughout replacement of the CloudGuard platform.
• Deliver a proof-of-concept (POC) of the replacement CSPM tool and address identified capability gaps through engineering solutions (e.g., supplemental guardrails).
• Contribute to documentation, engineering standards, and continuous improvement practices that promote long-term maintainability.

• Love of learning and a growth mindset. Software engineering is your craft, not just your job.
• Demonstrated software engineering experience and proficiency using JavaScript and TypeScript.
• 5+ years of experience with extensive exposure to numerous aspects of software engineering and demonstrated full stack proficiency using JavaScript and TypeScript.
• Deep understanding of Amazon Web Services (AWS) including IAM, KMS, EC2, Event Bridge, ECS, Config, CloudTrail, CloudFormation, Lambda, and others using AWS CloudFormation, CDK or Serverless Framework.
• Working knowledge of IP networking, VPNs, DNS, load balancing and firewalling.
• Experience in establishing software engineering guidelines and in performing code and design reviews.
• Experience in documenting design and architecture artifacts and presenting artifacts for architectural review.
• Comfortable operating in fast-moving environments where standards and tooling evolve, and you proactively define guardrails rather than waiting for direction.

Differentiators

• Experience in pair programming or mob programming methodologies.
• Experience in DevOps and CICD automation and tooling.
• Strong knowledge of cloud security, application security, and security engineering.
• Experience working as part of a Platform Engineering team and/or contributing to open-source projects.
• An AWS professional level certification, AWS Security Specialty certification is a plus.
• Database experience with SQL and/or NoSQL
• Experience with advanced Agentic Engineering or AIDLC (AI Development Lifecycle)

All roles at College Board require:

• A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work

• Authorization to work in the United States for any employer

• Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and a comfort learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively.

• Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal

• A learner’s mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input.

• A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.

• A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success.

At College Board, we offer more than just a paycheck-we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We’re a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation, grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.

A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation

• The hiring range for this role is $153,000 - $166,000

• Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at the College Board.

• We aim to make our best offer upfront-rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data.

• We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live.

You’ll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it’s like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more.