Senior Software Engineer Job Description Template

The senior software engineer owns substantial parts of a product and is trusted to make design decisions without close supervision. Beyond writing code, the role carries responsibility for code review, mentoring and the reliability of what the team ships. At a smaller company the scope widens considerably, often covering infrastructure, on call and direct contact with customers.

Typical Duties and Responsibilities

• Design and build significant features and services
• Own technical decisions within an area and document them
• Review code and design work from other engineers
• Mentor less experienced engineers
• Improve system reliability, performance and observability
• Participate in on call and incident response
• Work with product on scope, feasibility and sequencing
• Reduce technical debt deliberately rather than opportunistically
• Contribute to hiring through interviews and assessment
• Improve the team’s testing and delivery practices

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent practical experience

Required Skills and Experience

• 5+ years of professional software engineering
• Strong command of at least one modern language and its ecosystem
• Experience designing systems rather than only implementing specifications
• Solid database and API design skills
• Testing and code review discipline
• Experience operating what you build in production
• Ability to mentor and give useful feedback
• Clear written and verbal communication

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a high growth environment
• Exposure to more than one part of the stack