When you join Turnitin, you'll be welcomed into a company that is a recognized innovator in the global education space. For over 25 years, Turnitin has partnered with educational institutions to promote honesty, consistency, and fairness across all subject areas and assessment types. Over 21,000 academic institutions, publishers, and corporations use our services: Feedback Studio, Originality, Gradescope, ExamSoft, Similarity, and iThenticate.

Experience a remote-centric culture that empowers you to work with purpose and accountability in a way that best suits you, supported by a comprehensive package that prioritizes your overall well-being. Our diverse community of colleagues are all unified by a shared desire to make a difference in education.

Turnitin is a global organization with team members in over 35 countries including the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, India, and the Philippines.

Role Description

Turnitin is seeking a Principal Backend Engineer with a strong focus on backend development, particularly in Java and serverless architectures, combined with solid frontend experience. This role is ideal for engineers passionate about building scalable distributed systems, data modeling, and delivering high-performing, reliable software solutions for our award-winning educational platform.

As a core contributor to our shared services team, you will play a key role in developing and enhancing the foundational systems that power both existing and new applications. This role is fully hands-on, requiring active involvement in coding, development, and implementation of technical solutions.

Responsibilities:

Lead and design, development, and optimization of scalable backend services using Java and serverless technologies (e.g., AWS Lambda).
Architect and implement RESTful APIs and event-driven systems to support high-performance, distributed applications.
Provide technical leadership to the team, ensuring alignment with architectural standards and best practices.
Contribute to the development and integration of user-facing frontend components when needed.
Analyze and optimize existing services to enhance performance, scalability, and cost-efficiency.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including Architects, Product Managers, and engineering leads, to deliver innovative and impactful solutions.
Mentor and guide junior developers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and knowledge sharing.
Oversee the implementation and maintenance of CI/CD pipelines to ensure efficient and reliable software delivery.
Maintain high standards of code quality through rigorous peer reviews, comprehensive testing, and adherence to industry best practices.
Create comprehensive documentation for the developed shared components, including usage guidelines and examples.