Tech Lead/Manager, Software Engineering

We believe in the power and joy of learning

At Cengage, our employees have a direct impact in helping students around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.  

Cengage's portfolio of businesses supports student choice by providing a range of pathways that help learners achieve their goals and lead a choice-filled life.  

Our culture values inclusion, engagement, and discovery

Our business is driven by our strong culture, and we know that creating an inclusive workplace is absolutely essential to the success of our company and our learners, as well as our individual well-being. We recognize the value of diverse perspectives in everything we do, and strive to ensure employees of all levels and backgrounds feel empowered to voice their ideas and bring their authentic selves to work. We achieve these priorities through programs, benefits, and initiatives that are integrated into the fabric of how we work every day. To learn more, please see https://www.cengagegroup.com/about/inclusion-and-belonging/.  

What you'll do here:

As the Software Engineering Manager, you will lead a team dedicated to creating tools to deliver a world-class experience for our Cengage Learning Platforms (CLP). Working closely with internal partners, you will define and implement an innovative, AI-first roadmap ensuring quality and accessibility remain a primary focus.

Following the Product Operating Model (POM), you will collaborate with product and design teams in your role as technical lead. Together you will focus on improving customer outcomes through frequent stakeholder engagements and data-driven insights.

• Lead, coach, and grow a high-performing engineering team focused on quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.

• Reimagine and optimize software delivery processes using modern tools, automation, and generative AI.

• Engage in driving POM Discovery activities including continuous customer engagement, both internal and external, to derive solutions that meet end user, company, and technology goals.

• Track quality and efficiency improvements through well instrumented SDLC tools and report progress to executive teams.

• Balance technical debt and other maintenance activities alongside new feature development within each sprint.

• Work with partners and customers to establish and handle product backlogs, product estimates and budgets.

• Stay in front of emerging technologies and industry trends to inject continuous innovation into our product roadmaps.  

Skills You Will Need Here:

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and recent, relevant work experience.

• 3+ years of technology leadership experience, including developing technology strategies, fostering innovation, and leading globally distributed teams.  

Generative AI & Emerging Technologies

• Working knowledge of AI concepts, including machine learning, LLMs, multimodal models, prompt engineering, AI agents, RAG, and vector databases.

• Hands-on experience integrating or experimenting with commercial and open-source GenAI technologies and toolkits (e.g., coding assistants, OpenAI, Hugging Face, LangChain). 

Architecture & Cloud Platforms

• Experience in modernizing legacy or monolithic architectures, migrating systems to modular, cloud-native platforms, and implementing hybrid cloud strategies.

• Ability to design and develop APIs that integrate legacy systems with modern solutions.

• Comfortable designing and deploying solutions on AWS, GCP, or Azure, including containers, serverless, and cloud storage/compute services.  

Software Engineering & Product Delivery

• Proven ability to build secure, resilient, scalable, high-availability enterprise systems for global user bases.

• Strong experience with agile delivery (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and tooling such as Jira or Azure DevOps

• Demonstrated success organizing teams and delivery around a Product Operating Model  

Collaboration & Communication

• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills in distributed, remote-first environments.

• Ability to clearly communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-techn