Principal Software Engineer

At Udemy, we’re on a mission to improve lives through the power of learning. We’re a leading global learning company and one of the world’s largest education platforms, with more than 59 million learners. Our goal is to provide flexible, effective skill development to empower organizations and individuals. 

Talented people are everywhere, and the right opportunity can be hard to come by. That’s why we’re focused on revolutionizing learning, using our skills and expertise to help others develop theirs and reach their full potential. Individually, we bring our unique perspective to reimagine the way we share knowledge. Together, we can improve lives by making learning more accessible for our learners, our instructors, and businesses around the world.

Udemy is headquartered in San Francisco with global offices in Australia, India, Ireland, Türkiye, and the US. Learn more on our company page.

You’re an analytical problem-solver ready to put your skills toward purposeful work that has a global impact. You want to lead the way in innovation, exploring the latest technologies and finding new solutions. You thrive in a collaborative environment and are eager to work with and learn alongside the best in Product, Design, and Engineering.

The Conversion portfolio at Udemy is focused on serving new Learners by highlighting how our products help them achieve their goals, advance in their careers, or help upskill/reskill their team or business. The experience spans Learner entry to the site, discovery and evaluation of best-match Instructors and learning products for the Learner, and ideally concludes with the Learner selecting and purchasing lifetime access to a learning product, trialing or purchasing a subscription plan, or generating a lead for one of our enterprise products.
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will work closely with your product, design, engineering, and data science peers and a broad set of collaborating teams and stakeholders to evolve and grow our product offerings for a global audience. This is a fascinating, fast-paced, and expanding area of the Udemy platform, with many novel challenges to solve. We are aiming to hire an engineer who can help us build the core value proposition of all of our product offerings globally. You will also play a pivotal role in transforming our Front End architecture from a monolithic pattern to smaller, independent, front end experiences.

• Leading the evolution of our front-end experiences from monolithic to a globally distributed architecture through a framework based on Next.js for the benefit of Udemy's Learner experiences
• Implement new front-end experiences with back-end services served over GraphQL
• Help grow a front-end team around you who can build intuitive, maintainable, and powerful front-end experiences
• Participate in code reviews making sure that our code is well designed, tested, robust, secure, performant and readable
• Incorporate Experiment-Driven development in your daily work in order to improve overall user journey
• Own the architectural vision for multiple product areas

• 8+ years of full-time engineering experience
• Expertise in JavaScript and TypeScript
• Advanced understanding of React, including React Hooks & Functional Components (or equivalent front-end frameworks)
• Experience designing scalable, secure and performant APIs (REST/GraphQL/gRPC)
• Willingness to learn and operate across the stack with Front End and Web Performance focuses
• Lead large efforts involving multiple stakeholders
  

We understand that not everyone will match each of the above qualifications. However, we also realize that everyone has unique experiences that can add value to our company. Even if you think your background might not perfectly align, we'd love to hear from you!

We aspire to be as vibrant and dynamic as the communities we serve, as inquisitive as those who use our platform, and as revolutionary as the future we strive to open for everyone. Here are some of the things we love about life at Udemy:

•  We’re invested in creating an inclusive environment that welcomes a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. From creating employee resource groups, ensuring we’re a Fair Pay Workplace, and building a flexible work culture, our belonging, equity, diversity, and inclusion (BEDI) initiatives always put our people first. We want you to be able to bring your authentic self to work because when we all do, we’re better for it.
  
• Learning is what we do – inside and out. Our Learning & Development team is second to none, helping ensure your journey is one of continuous progression. You’ll also have unlimited access to Udemy courses, monthly UDays (meeting-free professional development days), and a generous annual professional development stipend.
  
• Our reason to exist is to revolutionize learning – that calls for taking risks and learning from failures. Whether it’s our hackathons (a company-wide effort to envision new possibilities for our product) or sharing our prototypes, we see experimentation as a crucial step on the path to success.
  
• We’re committed to creating world-class employee experiences and are proud of the recognition of this by Great Place to Work. Learn more about our certification here and find out what it's like to work at Udemy on our blog.

Of course, the best thing about being part of Udemy is knowing your work makes a difference for people and organizations around the world. You’ve got the skills; why not use them to help others develop theirs?

At Udemy, we value diversity and inclusion and consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, veteran status, medical condition, or disability. We will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Our benefits package at Udemy “starts with U” and is grounded in mission-driven benefits that intentionally align with our core values. Here’s a sneak peek at just a few highlighted benefits if you’re a full-time Udemate based in the United States:

• Core Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life/AD&D, and disability coverage
• HSA/FSA/Commuter: Pre-tax savings/spending plans, including HSA employer contributions
• Transgender Benefits: Expanded medical coverage for gender-affirming care
• Parental Benefits: Financial assistance for fertility (including egg-freezing), adoption, and surrogacy expenses; twelve weeks of paid family bonding for birth, surrogacy, adoption, and foster placement (plus up to six to ten weeks of paid disability leave for birthing parents) as well as a two-week “ease-back” program that enables parents to return part-time at full pay
• Whole U: Fully paid memberships for meditation/mindfulness, therapy/coaching visits, financial planning, virtual family care, reproductive health, breastmilk shipping, and caregiving support
• Learning: Free access to Udemy and Udemy Business plus a yearly stipend to spend on professional development
• Retirement: Pre-tax and Roth 401(k) plan with an employer contribution
• Charitable Giving: Corporate charitable match for eligible nonprofits and charities
• Vacation: Flexible vacation for salaried Udemates and fifteen days per year for hourly
• Holidays: Twelve paid holidays throughout the year

Would you like to learn more about Udemy? Here are a few resources:

How Udemy Started [video]

Investor Overview

The hiring range for this position is $182,000 - $304,000. Actual compensation is based on several factors, including but not limited to job-related skills, qualifications, experience, and specific work location due to differences in the cost of labor. In addition to a base salary, this role is also eligible for benefits and equity, and an annual bonus. 

Note: Disclosure as required by sb19-085 (8-5-20) of the minimum salary compensation for this role when being hired into our offices in Colorado. 

Information regarding data privacy is available within the Udemy Careers Privacy Notice.