Fast Facts

Join Coursera as a Staff Software Developer on the Data Platform team, where you'll empower data workers by developing robust tools and innovative platforms to enhance productivity and drive the company's data-driven culture.

Responsibilities: Design and implement scalable data platforms, APIs, and systems while collaborating with cross-functional teams. Lead initiatives to improve systems architecture and mentor team members in a collaborative environment.

Skills: 7+ years of backend software engineering, expertise in data infrastructure, proficiency in Java or Python, experience with cloud data services and large datasets, and strong belief in engineering quality.

Qualifications: 3+ years focused on data systems, experience with data lakes and eventing services, and the ability to operate in fast-paced environments with limited supervision.

Location: California, USA

Compensation: Not provided by employer. Typical compensation ranges for this position are between $130,000 - $190,000.

Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, with 183 million registered learners as of June 30, 2025. Coursera partners with over 350 leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and degrees. Coursera’s platform innovations enable instructors to deliver scalable, personalized, and verified learning experiences to their learners. Institutions worldwide rely on Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, citizens, and students in high-demand fields such as GenAI, data science, technology, and business. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a B Corp.

We’re a global platform aiming to transform lives through learning by offering transformative courses, certificates, and degrees that empower learners worldwide to advance their careers through skill mastery. We’re looking for inventors, innovators, and lifelong learners eager to shape the future of education. If you’re ready to build the global programs and tools that fuel the power of online learning, join Team Coursera.

At Coursera, we are committed to building a globally diverse team and are thrilled to extend employment opportunities to individuals in any country where we have a legal entity. We require candidates to possess eligible working rights and have a compatible timezone overlap with their team to facilitate seamless collaboration. 

Coursera has a commitment to enabling flexibility and workspace choices for employees. Our interviews and onboarding are entirely virtual, providing a smooth and efficient experience for our candidates. As an employee, we enable you to select your main way of working, whether it's from home, one of our offices or hubs, or a co-working space near you.

Job Overview:

As a Staff Software Developer on the Data Platform team, you will join the team’s mission to empower data workers at Coursera and maximize their productivity by providing robust tools, innovative platforms, and a steadfast analytics infrastructure. The team owns a wide range of data-empowering systems, including eventing services, experimentation systems, and offline data lake systems. This is an exciting time to join the team as we are actively developing our new data lake systems, unifying our data development tool stack, and enhancing our eventing as well as experimentation platforms to enable the company’s data driven culture.  

You will be a technical leader, scaling and developing our data infrastructure as well as tools that pave the path for data development in our offline data systems. You will tackle complex technical challenges at scale that power millions of learners and drive substantial technical impact across multiple teams within the organization. You will have the opportunity to influence the future roadmap, growth, and success of Coursera's data-driven culture. You will collaborate closely with data engineers, data scientists, machine learning, and product engineers.  

Responsibilities:

• Design and implement scalable & robust Data Platforms, APIs, and Systems
• Proactively identify and implement high-leverage opportunities to improve system architecture, scalability, and performance
• Develop and deploy your high-quality code (in Java, Scala, Python, or similar languages) following industry best practices and track key service level indicators (SLIs)
• Debug and fix production issues, lead blameless retrospectives, and participate in the on-call rotation to ensure adherence to the service level agreements (SLAs)
• Collaborate and mentor team members, foster a collaborative and inclusive environment, and proactively pinpoint and advance engineering improvements and practices
• Own large feature areas, identify gaps in system ownership, and drive initiatives to simplify and consolidate system components.

Basic Qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience working in a relevant backend software engineering role, with 3+ years focused on data infrastructure or data systems.
• Experience with implementing APIs and writing automated tests, and proficiency in at least one backend programming language (e.g., Java, Python)
• Demonstrated history working with cloud data services (e.g., AWS, GCP), streaming technologies, and handling large data sets
• Proven experience in defining technical roadmaps for a data system or a software system
• Fervent belief in engineering quality and building technical leverage for others
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving team environment (we deploy many times a day!)
• Data-driven and strongly motivated by success and learnings through experiments and metrics analysis

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working with data systems or data lakes. Experience working with eventing services. Experience collaborating with data science and data engineering functions.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, and navigate through ambiguity and uncertainty with confidence.
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality products or services.
• Proven track record of delivering results in a resource-constrained environment with limited guidance and supervision.

If this opportunity interests you, you might like these courses on Coursera:

• Object Oriented Java Programming: Data Structures and Beyond
• Designing data-intensive applications
• Communication Skills for Engineers

Coursera is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected class.

If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, please contact us at [email protected].

For California Candidates, please review our CCPA Applicant Notice here.

For our Global Candidates, please review our GDPR Recruitment Notice here.