Senior Software Engineer Closed Pearson

Skills / Requirements

• AI-assisted Engineering
• Angular
• API Design
• Automation Testing
• CI/CD
• Clean Code
• Cloud-hosted Systems
• Distributed Systems
• Feature Flags
• Java
• Mentoring
• Observability
• Operational Excellence
• React
• Spring
• Trunk-based Development
• Unit Testing
• Vibe Coding

Why Apply

This role is ideal for someone skilled in AI-assisted engineering, using tools like GitHub Copilot to enhance productivity and code quality. The position emphasizes modern "vibe coding" practices, including trunk-based development and continuous integration, which are well-suited for developers who thrive with AI tools.

What You'll Be Doing

You'll modernize critical backend services, focusing on Java and Spring-based systems, while enhancing platform capabilities for multiple teams. Your work will include improving testing practices, supporting trunk-based delivery, and ensuring operational excellence. Collaboration across teams to influence technical direction is key.

Pay and Career Growth

Pearson offers a collaborative culture with high autonomy and visibility, allowing your work to influence multiple teams and platform direction. The role promises the opportunity to apply modern engineering practices and engage in responsible AI-assisted development. Compensation details are not specified.

Benefits and Perks

• Collaboration culture
• High autonomy
• Modern engineering practices
• Remote Work

Is This Role Right for You?

Original Job Description

Senior Software Engineer – Platform & Modernization

English Language Learning (ELL) – Assessments Technology

Department: English Language Learning (ELL)

Job family: Software Engineering

Contract: Full‑time (FTE)

Location: Hybrid / Full Remote (Spain or Poland)

ABOUT PEARSON AND ELL

Pearson is the world’s leading learning company, committed to helping people realise the life they imagine through learning. Within Pearson, the English Language Learning (ELL) organisation builds platforms and products that support language learning and language proficiency assessment at global scale. This role sits within ELL Technology, in teams responsible for secure, reliable, and scalable assessment systems, where engineering quality, operational stability, and long-term sustainability are critical.

ROLE SUMMARY

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help modernize and strengthen core assessment technology within ELL. This role is designed for an engineer who is comfortable working across legacy and modern systems, raising engineering maturity, and enabling multiple teams through shared platform improvements. This is not a single-team, feature-only role. You will have a home squad, while also contributing to cross-team enablement, modernization initiatives, and engineering best practices that scale across ELL.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

1. Modernization of critical backend services

Design, implement, and evolve Java / Spring-based services, including refactoring and modernization of legacy systems

Reduce long-term technical risk by improving maintainability, modularity, and clarity of ownership

Apply incremental modernization techniques that allow teams to continue delivering while architecture evolves

2. Platform and cross-team enablement

Contribute to shared platform capabilities used by multiple ELL squads (e.g. release safety patterns, feature-flagging approaches, service integration standards)

Act as a technical partner for teams adopting new responsibilities or inheriting complex systems

Help make platform improvements visible, measurable, and repeatable across teams

3. Quality and testing maturity

Treat unit testing as a first-class responsibility, ensuring new and changed code is well covered and reliable

Improve testing practices across the test pyramid (unit, integration, contract), collaborating with QA/QE and SRE partners where needed

Support teams in building sustainable quality habits that improve release confidence and reduce incidents

4. Trunk-based delivery and engineering discipline

Work in a trunk-based development model, with short-lived branches, frequent integration, and a main branch that is always releasable

Use feature flags and automated tests to enable safe, continuous delivery

Contribute to code reviews and CI pipelines that protect trunk stability and quality

5. AI-assisted engineering

Use Pearson-approved AI development tools (e.g. GitHub Copilot Business and, where approved and funded, Cursor-style IDEs) to improve productivity, code comprehension, refactoring, and test creation

Apply strong engineering judgment: review AI-generated output critically, add appropriate tests, and ensure security and quality standards are met

Act as a role model for responsible AI usage in software development

6. Operational excellence

Contribute to systems with real customers and real reliability expectations

Support sustainable operations by addressing root causes, not just symptoms

Collaborate effectively with product, QA, and SRE stakeholders in an environment with defined operational processes and SLAs

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

Must-have

Strong backend engineering experience, including Java and Spring (or equivalent Java frameworks)

Solid software engineering fundamentals: API design, clean code, CI/CD awareness, observability basics

Comfortable with modern “vibe coding” practices — collaborating with AI coding assistants

Trunk-based development experience or mindset: short-lived branches, continuous integration, trunk always in a releasable state

Strong unit-testing discipline: writing deterministic unit tests, integrating them into CI pipelines, and treating unit tests as part of “done”

Ability to collaborate across teams and influence technical direction pragmatically

Strongly preferred

Proven experience modernizing, refactoring, or stabilizing legacy systems

Experience implementing or operating feature flag solutions to support safe delivery

Experience improving automation testing strategy beyond a single codebase (patterns, standards, enablement)

Familiarity with cloud-hosted, distributed systems and reliability concerns

Experience mentoring engineers and improving team-level engineering practices

Front-end development experience (e.g. React/Angular applications)

WAYS OF WORKING / MINDSET

Comfortable operating in ambiguity and evolving architectures

Outcome-driven: balances ideal solutions with real-world constraints

Quality-focused without being dogmatic

Communicates trade-offs clearly and constructively

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Within 6-12 months, you will:

Help transform a legacy service area into something easier and safer to change

Enable teams to work confidently in a trunk-based delivery model with strong automated testing

Improve release safety through feature flags, better test coverage, and pragmatic platform improvements

Reduce dependency bottlenecks by raising shared engineering maturity across squads

WHY JOIN PEARSON ELL

Work on global, mission-critical assessment technology where reliability, security, and scale truly matter

High autonomy and visibility: your work will influence multiple teams and long-term platform direction

Strong collaboration culture across Engineering, QA/QE, Product, and SRE

Opportunity to apply modern engineering practices — including responsible AI-assisted development

Who we are:

At Pearson, our purpose is simple: to help people realize the life they imagine through learning. We believe that every learning opportunity is a chance for a personal breakthrough. We are the world’s lifelong learning company. For us, learning isn’t just what we do. It’s who we are. To learn more: We are Pearson.

Pearson is an Equal Opportunity Employer and a member of E-Verify. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, merit and business need. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status or any other group protected by law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

If you are an individual with a disability and are unable or limited in your ability to use or access our career site as a result of your disability, you may request reasonable accommodations by emailing TalentExperienceGlobalTeam@grp.pearson.com.

Job: Engineering

Job Family: TECHNOLOGY

Organization: English Language Learning

Schedule: FULL_TIME

Workplace Type: Remote

Req ID: 23922

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