Are you looking for more than just a job and want to make difference? If so, then join the National Student Clearinghouse talent community and discover your impact today!

We are a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization and the leading provider of educational reporting, data exchange, verification, and research services. Serving the education, workforce and learner communities has been at the heart of our mission for over 30 years. Our work performed in a trusted, secure, and private environment provides numerous time- and cost-saving benefits to students, schools, administrators, and requestors. Education leaders rely on the Clearinghouse's unique national student data resources to better understand student pathways and outcomes in order to help students succeed, and our research better informs practitioners and policymakers about student educational pathways and enables informed decision making.

About the Role:

The Clearinghouse is embarking on a reimagining of its technology landscape that intends to centralize the management of its core data assets in a manner that allows for quicker delivery of data-driven solutions to its market. We are seeking a Senior Backend Software Engineer who is experienced in using Python to implement microservices and serverless functions and who has deep knowledge of AWS. This position will be part of a solution team that focuses on NSC's Client Data Acquisition and Client Data Enrichment and Processing solutions.

Are you someone who has an innate drive to learn new ways of thinking, loves to rely on previous experience and new opportunities to drive a culture of innovation, and strives for tangible delivery of value from your work? If so, please read on!

Currently, this is a remote-first position, and this position may be required to periodically work on-site at our office and the frequency would depend on the department/division's requirements. Therefore, candidates must either reside within a reasonable distance to commute to our office or be willing to travel to our office in Herndon, when required.

How You Contribute:

• Demonstrate NSC's competencies, which align with our corporate values. Manager will provide more detail to candidates as needed.
  • Core Competencies include:Customer Focus, Optimizes Work Processes, Collaborates, Communicates Effectively, and Be Open and Authentic.

Customer Focus:

• Design, develop, test, and build backend services and related infrastructure to support business requirements and other desired outcomes.
• Support The Clearinghouse's defensive posture toward protecting its client data by following current and recommending new software development best practices that promote data integrity and security.
• Support troubleshooting and diagnosis of bugs and other client-facing issues as they arise.

Work Process Optimization:

• Develop code that conforms to defensive coding practices and supports the OWASP Top 10.
• Contribute to automation of routine development and deployment activities such as SAST/DAST security scanning, build and deployment pipelines.
• Contribute to the maintenance and automation of technical documentation relating to the developed platforms.

Collaboration:

• Collaborate with team members to deliver solutions that meet expectations on time and within budget.
• Review and understand desired system architectures and work to ensure conformity and fitness throughout the development lifecycle.
• Perform and participate in code and design reviews by giving effective and actionable feedback.
• Participate in cross-functional collaborative and problem-solving activities.

Effective Communication:

• Obtain a firm understanding of desired system architectures and become conversant in explaining how designs promote the architecture.
• Communicate clearly and effectively across various stakeholder groups and levels with the appropriate leve of detail and tone.
• Proactively and regularly communicate progress, especially around risks and challenges to others.

Openness and Authenticity:

• Demonstrate openness to new perspectives, different ways of working, and new technologies.
• Be curious about why others hold their perspectives - especially when they differ from your own.
• Build trust with stakeholders by aligning words and actions.

Other duties may be added or removed as The Clearinghouse's needs evolve.

These essential functions are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodation will be made for individuals with disabilities so that they may perform these essential functions.

What You Bring to the Table:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field. A combination of education and experience, including through military service, will also be considered.
• Advanced proficiency with a combination of the following (typically acquired by 8+ years of experience):
  • Advanced Python development for backend solutions (especially FastAPI, SQLAlchemy).
  • Experience with both writing and using RESTful Web Services.
  • Experience with microservice-based architectures, asynchronous interservice communication, and message-based/event-driven architectures.
  • Experience with data-processing services (event streaming) and data enrichment as a service.
  • Experience using AWS CloudFormation and the management of CloudFormation Templates.
  • Experience in AWS building application services using Kubernetes (EKS and Helm), private and public API gateways, networking configurations, etc.
  • Experience with other AWS Compute resource types, such as AWS Lambda.
  • Experience working with PostgreSQL.
  • Experience with AWS building centralized data governance and storage solutions (AWS Glue Catalog, Amazon Athena, PySpark/AWS Glue Jobs).
  • Experience with CI/CD processes, especially Jenkins and AWS CodeCommit
  • Maintaining code quality and security standards using tools such as or similar to GitLab, SonarQube, Fortify, Burp, and/or Crucible.
  • Agile/Scrum procedures and processes.
  • Analyzing, troubleshooting, fixing software and configuration defects.
• Strong organizational and analytical skills and attention to detail.
• Excellent written, verbal, and Interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate technical and nontechnical information to different audiences and stakeholder groups.
• Demonstrated ability to:
  • Act as a thought leader and mentor.
  • Manage conflicting priorities to successfully deliver projects on time.
  • Work both independently and as a member of a larger team to resolve challenges.
• Must live within a commutable distance to Herndon, VAor in one of the Clearinghouse's approved States for hiring purposes. Refer to our HR Policies Page, located on our Careers site at, for more details.
• Must be at least 18 years old.

Physical Demands:

Use of a computer for 8 or more hours a day.

Use of a copy machine and telephone.

Frequently required to sit for 7 or more hours per day in c